


The Unlikeliest Places

by griever11



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, First Meetings, Oral Sex, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut, rating only upped for chapter 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-03-10 13:12:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 57,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13502256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griever11/pseuds/griever11
Summary: 'It all starts on an unassuming Friday evening. Or rather, if she’s being honest with herself, everything else in her life ends on that Friday.'An AU meeting fic where Felicity Smoak accidentally-on-purpose stumbles upon some shady activity as an IT tech for Queen Consolidated and realises that she really isn't being paid enough for any of this.





	1. Friday

It all starts on an unassuming Friday evening.

Or rather, if she’s being honest with herself, _everything else_ in her life _ends_ on that Friday.

Okay, no, that’s a little dramatic. And it depends on who you ask, really. For Felicity Smoak though, eternal optimist, searcher of silver linings even among the darkest of clouds, it all begins for her on that wintery Friday evening.

‘It’ being...  the rest of her life.

It went a little something like this:

* * *

 

She’s settled in for a late night, a six-pack of Berry flavoured 5-hour Energy tucked under her desk and a Big Belly delivery on the way. The office is empty - sort of, she’s sure the janitor is here somewhere, but he’s nice and won’t complain about her being there - so she kicks off her heels and stretches her feet out, wiggling her toes in delight.

Nothing better than the peace and quiet of an otherwise noisy workspace when she’s faced with a boat-load of work that her boss had unceremoniously dumped on her desk at four thirty in the afternoon on a Friday. It’s not like she minded it. She has nothing else planned for the rest of the evening and besides, she really, really loves her job.  

She chews on her pen, mentally playing duck duck goose with the files on her desk trying to decide which one to start on first. Her eyes fall on a rather thin folder and she grins. There’s a post it note stuck on it, with _‘data leak??_ ? _Find source_.’ scrawled hastily on the yellow paper.

Data leaks are easy. She can start with easy.

* * *

  

“Where are you hiding, stupid server? Wherever you are, I will _find you_.”

Felicity realises she’s talking to herself but there’s no one around to care. The data leak problem, despite disguising itself within the really thin folder, turns out to be a bigger problem for QC than she expected.

Someone’s rerouting huge packets of data from their internal servers to an off-site location somewhere in Starling City. That much she’s certain of. Her current conundrum however, is locating this off-site location, finding out who’s responsible and why they’re doing it _._  

She’s already tracked down the source of the leak and according to the briefing in the folder, that is all she’s meant to do. She should be writing a report and submitting her findings to her superior so that he can deal with it.

But she’s already neck deep in code, halfway through her second can of energy drink and there’s no way she’s just going to stop now. And more importantly, she’s personally offended that someone managed to break into QC’s systems to plant the exploit piggybacking on their network.

She scowls bitterly at her screen as she dismantles yet another line of the intruder’s exploit. If her supervising officer had taken up on her offer to redesign their internal security all those months ago, this would have never happened. “Take that, Supervising IT Consultant Mike McGrath. This is all _your_ fault.”

Her fingers fly over her keyboard, poking at holes in the rather primitive code that had snuck into QC’s servers. It’s shameful really, the lack of thought that went into this little hack.

“Gonna have to take away your hacker cred,” she mutters, rolling her eyes at one particularly poorly executed line of code. “You didn’t even mask your IP address, are you kidding?”

Felicity’s close to figuring it all out, she can feel it in her bones. She’s tingly all over, like she’s on a cusp of something big. Or it could just be all the caffeine currently coursing through her veins. Either way, she’s _so_ close and then _finally_!   

A window pops up on her computer screen and she enters the commands that will give her access to the server currently stealing gigabytes of data per second from QC.

She pumps her fists in the air. “Gotcha!”

* * *

 

Felicity pulls up onto the side of the road when her GPS indicates she’s close to where the rogue servers are. She kills her engine and double checks her tablet to make sure she’s in the right spot.

She’d been unable to pinpoint the exact location of the servers, but she’s narrowed the search area down to a small enough radius that encompasses a group of four warehouses in the outer edges of the Glades.

In the back of her mind, she knows she’s truly going above and beyond her job description by being here. Driving around what most people consider the sketchier part of Starling City in the middle of the night with nothing but her tablet is definitely not how she envisioned her night going when she picked up the folder on her desk, but what’s done is done and she’s determined to see this particular mystery through to the end.

Her tablet beeps at her, indicating she’s right in the middle of the search area. She frowns. The idea that one of these old, decrepit buildings is housing state of the art servers capable of siphoning terabytes of data is completely ludicrous.

And yet, here she is.

Sighing, she unlocks her car door and steps out onto the street. The sound of her heels hitting the asphalt echo into the night and it sends a wave of nervousness through her. She shivers when a gust cold air hits her skin and she swallows hard, tamping down the sudden need to jump back into her car and drive off.  

Why did she think driving out alone to the Glades in the middle of the night with nothing but her phone and her tablet was a good idea?  

“Note to self. Don’t make decisions at midnight after many, many cans of 5-hour energy,” she mutters as she squints at the street sign at the end of the road, taking in her surroundings. 

“Just a quick in and out. That’s all. Find the servers, plug the leak. Solve the problem, become QC’s IT hero. Nothing to be scared about, nothing at all. I can totally do this.”

She makes her way to the first warehouse, barely able to make out the sign that’s falling apart in front of it. Her skin prickles with trepidation, all her senses on high alert because she _is_ in the Glades after all, alone, late at night.

Wow. Definitely one of the worst decisions she’s ever made in her life, like, _ever_.

The warehouse seems safe enough. It doesn’t look like it’s about to collapse in itself, for one, and she can’t quite make it out in the dark, but it looks like there’s a door along the side wall so that’s a good start.

She’s about to make her way to the door when it slams open, the metal clanging loudly in the silence, causing her to jump out of her skin. Her tablet clatters to the ground and she squeals in fright, cringing as she hears the telltale sound of glass shattering.  

A tall figure emerges from the doorway and fear twists in her gut.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he calls out to her as he approaches.

He’s big, lots of bulging muscles underneath the business shirt he’s wearing, and he can probably knock her out with a flick of his finger. Crap, crap, _crap._  

She is in _so muc_ h trouble. Her pepper spray is in the car - _why_ did she not think to carry it with her, so stupid. Oh, God. She’s panicking and should probably make a run for it, but she won’t make it far in her heels and -

“You don’t need to run,” the man says, and Felicity realises belatedly that she’d been panicking _out loud._ Great. She’s just let her potential murderer know exactly how scared she is.  

But instead of looking like a psychopath about to go on a killing spree, the man instead has an amused smirk on his face. Almost like he’s _smiling_ at her. Or maybe that’s just what people look like when they’re about to kill _someone._

She gulps.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says as he crouches down to pick up her now useless tablet. “I don’t think this will be much use to you any longer.”

Felicity stands stock still, frightened into silence, but extends her hand to take her tablet from him when he rises.

Now that he’s closer, she notices that he looks a little familiar and a lot less menacing. In fact - she cocks her head to the side, narrowing her eyes at him - he actually looks... nice. Like a generally nice person. She feels the rapid thudding of her heart slow down, and thinks that it’s quite possible she won’t die tonight. She cheers on the inside.

She only realises she hasn’t said a single word to this mystery man when he speaks again. This time, with genuine concern etched into his face.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone at this time of the night,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. Something about him makes her feel safe, or as safe as one can feel when confronted with a stranger in the middle of the night in a bad neighbourhood.

“I, uh. I’m here for work.” She blinks owlishly at him and tries to keep her voice steady. “I work for the I.T. department at Queen Consolidated. We detected a data leak from our network pointing to servers located in this vicinity and so I’m here trying to fix it. The leak, not the servers. I don’t know if the servers need fixing - but hey, if they do, I can fix that too!”

She lets out a nervous breath. “Not that... I mean, I don’t even know why there’d be servers here, in the Glades, stealing our data, but that’s why I’m here.”

“You’re creeping around in the dark... for work?” The man repeats in disbelief. “At one in the morning?”

“I’m very dedicated,” she insists, forcing herself to smile. She hugs her broken tablet to her chest and tries to lighten the mood. “Yay, job! Am I right?”

He doesn’t react.

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and stretches up onto her tiptoes so she can see past the man’s broad shoulders. “So, uh, anyway, have you seen any data-stealing servers around here? Maybe in that warehouse you just walked out of?”

He clears his throat and something that she’s said causes him to narrow his eyes at her, but he doesn’t budge or give her the answer she’s looking for.

“Look, how about I walk you back to your car so you can get home safely and maybe you figure out this data thing tomorrow? When there’s daylight?”

Felicity is no longer afraid of him - if he wanted to hurt her, he would have done so already - so she takes a second to study the guy.

Dark skinned, close cropped hair - possibly ex-military, in his mid-thirties maybe, obviously very in shape. He’s tense and rigid, completely focused on her and as far as she can tell, _clearly_ hiding something.

Curiosity quickly replaces fear and she’s now hyper aware of the fact that this man is trying very hard to distract her from whatever is going in the warehouse behind him. He’s actively blocking her view of it, and yeah - the more she stares at him, the more she’s convinced that she’s seen him somewhere before.

“Do I know you?” she blurts out. “I think I know you. Do you go to Jitters? Big Belly? Maybe-”

He interrupts her by stepping in and taking her elbow, a move that shuts her up immediately. He’s gentle about it, however, and it sets her at ease. Somewhat.

“I’m sure we’ve never met, but you have to leave and I am walking you to your car.” He speaks with finality in his tone, signaling the end of the conversation. He turns them around and pulls her with him.  

“You don’t even know where my car is,” she mutters, allowing him to lead her away from the warehouse.

“I’m guessing it’s the only one parked on the street. Over there.”

Ah. Right. Well, then.

He does just as he promises, walking her right up to the driver’s side door of her Mini Cooper. He even opens the door for her. “You’ll drive straight home?”

Felicity rolls her eyes. “Where else would I go?”

“Good.”

She casts one last look at him before sliding into the seat. “You know I know you’re hiding something, right?”

He doesn’t even flinch. “It’ll be in your best interest to forget you were here tonight. Goodnight,” he says as he shuts her door for her. He turns his back and walks away before she can respond.

She sinks into her seat with a sigh, unable to believe what just happened. Adrenaline from her sudden encounter with the man is still coursing in her veins and the mysteriousness of it all is killing her.

She spares a glance back in the direction of the warehouse but the man is predictably gone. Resigning herself to the fact that she’s probably not going to get much more out of her little excursion tonight, she puts her car in reverse and starts pulling away from the side of the road.

And that’s when she sees a movement in her rearview mirror.

She slams on her brakes, eyes trained on the reflection. She can see the warehouse in the distance, dark and shrouded in shadows, but that’s not what had caught her attention.

No.

It’s the lone figure stepping _out_ of the warehouse door that the mystery man had just disappeared into that piques her interest.

He’s wearing some sort of hood - a hoodie, maybe, tight around his body. It’s too dark to make anything else out but there’s a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach - much like the feeling she got when she figured out where the leak was coming from. Goosebumps flare on her skin and her heart rate picks up.

Felicity holds her breath, not daring to move a muscle - which is silly, really, because she’s in her car and it’s not like he’s made any indication that he’s spotted her. But she doesn’t move anyway. Better safe than sorry.

The man turns the corner, walking into the alley that leads to the back of the warehouse and her suspicions are confirmed when she sees the bow strapped to his back.

The Hood.

* * *

  



	2. Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity doesn't care about the Hood. Not even a little bit.

She doesn’t sleep that night.

Intrigue, caffeine, sheer determination - and _okay_ , yes her absolute hatred for mysteries too - keep her going well into the early hours of the morning. By the time her stomach growls at her, protesting the lack of food, she’s read everything anyone’s ever written about the strange Starling City vigilante.

Which isn’t much, to her disappointment.

No one really knows anything about the Hood and pictures of him that are anything more than a blurry figure in the dark are even harder to come by. It frustrates her.

She does however, balance out the frustration by hacking her way into the SCPD servers and downloading all the Hood related police reports, cross-referencing them to witness sightings and news articles and after almost eight hours, there are three things that she is sure of:

  1. He’s not afraid to take lives.
  2. He knows his way around Starling City very well, managing to avoid traffic cams and CCTVs, dodging the police like it’s second nature.  
  3. He’s strong and well versed in martial arts and _really_ fit. 



Despite having all of her research laid out in plain writing before her - because, for lack of a better word, this _is_ research - she’s still not entirely positive what to make of all of it; nothing really makes sense.

The man she’d encountered the night before had such kind eyes and nothing about the way he spoke to her said _‘Hi, I’m the vigilante going around killing people, watch yourself, or I’ll send an arrow through your heart.’._ So she’s at a loss.

Had she _reall_ y met the man underneath the Hood last night?

He definitely had the right physique for it. Plus, there had been enough time for him to put on the hood between him leaving her at her car and when she spotted him coming out of the warehouse.  

Or, she wonders as a smidgen of doubt creeps in, had it all been one giant coincidence, aided by the fact that she was high on caffeine and sleep deprivation?

“Ugh,” she groans, squeezing her eyes shut and tilting her head over the back of her chair. “What am I even _doing_?”

Her computer beeps loudly and she cracks open an eye.

_Oh._

Her back straightens and she pulls her chair back towards her desk, clicking on the alert that had just popped up on her screen.

She’d set up a ghost program to monitor the data leak when she got back, and proceeded to completely forget all about it when she went down the rabbit hole of all things ‘Hood’ related.

Except now the program is telling her something’s wrong; that there’s an anomaly in the system, and as Felicity types in her credentials to access QC’s remote server, she realises why.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she mutters.

He’s patched the data leak.

* * *

 

Felicity spends the rest of her weekend telling herself she absolutely _does not care_ about the Hood anymore. Not even a little bit. Zero percent interest in why and what and how he’s doing what he’s doing.

The guy creeps around the city in the dark, killing people with a bow and arrow - bad people, to his credit - but still. She firmly believes that the SCPD is more than capable of handling the criminals in Starling City and this self-appointed ‘protector’ of the night doesn’t warrant anymore of her time and effort.

_Except._

Except he’d managed to get into QC’s servers to plant his stupid data-stealing exploit (she’s totally not taking it personally, _at all_ ) and then accessed the servers again to _remove_ the exploit - yet not smart enough to cover his tracks.

He could have hurt her - or _killed her_ (she shudders involuntarily) - when she stumbled upon what she’s now sure is his base of operations, but he’d let her go free. Even smiled at her and walked her to her car to make sure she was going straight home.  

His existence is a total contradiction and it’s driving her crazy. She can’t even concentrate on the Star Wars marathon she’s queued up and _that’s_ saying something. Her eyes keep drifting back to her desktop where she’s set up alerts for new mentions of the vigilante on the internet and despite having silenced the volume, she can see that there are new emails in her inbox with news on the Hood.

Her eyes cut to her computer for the millionth time during Anakin’s pod race and she tries really hard to tell herself it’s because she’s up to prequel movies and _not_ because she’s itching to check on the latest reports of vigilante sightings.

When she realises she’s completely missed the entire Darth Maul, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan fight because she’s too busy thinking of how someone managed to access QC’s servers undetected, she gives up and turns her TV off.

Who’s she kidding? She one hundred _and one_ percent cares about the Hood.

* * *

  

She walks into QC on Monday morning with a spring in her step and determination in her veins. She has every intention to make full use of her position and access at work to track down her mystery man and she’s positively vibrating with anticipation of what she might find.

She is blindsided however, by her supervisor Mike McGrath, Mr. ‘No, Felicity we don’t need a security upgrade for our internal network’, leaning on the edge of her work desk, rifling through her files when she gets to her cubicle. She huffs in annoyance, rolls her eyes and greets him with false cheer.

He doesn’t bother with pleasantries and immediately requests an update on the work he’d given her on Friday. Felicity fishes her (completely faked) report on the data leak out of her bag and she hands it over with feigned nonchalance.

“It was nothing serious then, Ms. Smoak?”

Felicity licks her lips and plasters what she think is an innocent smile on her face. “Nope, nothing serious at all. One of our monitoring programs isn’t - well, _wasn’t_ now, because I fixed it - compatible with the new anti-virus software we uploaded last week so it kept sending false error back to base on a loop and... uh. But that’s all in the report. That you have in your hand right now. So.“

Mike grunts what she assumes is approval at her and tucks her report under his arm before walking off. Felicity doesn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until she sees him disappear into his office and the relief escapes her in the form of a huge sigh. She sinks into her chair, shuts her eyes and wills her heart to stop pounding.  

“Oh my God,” she hisses under her breath. “Lying is hard.”  She gives herself a moment to calm down and then powers on her computer.

Hours later, she’s all but forgotten the close call that morning and she’s completely engrossed, pen in her mouth, eyes darting back and forth between her two monitors and occasionally checking the new tablet she’d requisitioned from the hardware department.

Her attention’s split between what she now calls ‘Hood stuff’ in her head, and her actual work for QC. She’s just finished writing an algorithm that will help her identify the man from the warehouse, pulling records from F.B.I, Interpol, and A.R.G.U.S databases and in an attempt to match them to the description she’d uploaded of the mystery guy. Her work computer on the other hand, is automatically logging support requests and sending them to the right I.T. tech support on duty.

Neither task actually requires her to physically _do_ anything right at that moment, so after an hour of fielding support calls, she decides it’s about time for another cup of coffee.

* * *

  

Jitters as usual, is bustling, and she’s not surprised at the line of people that snakes out past the front door. They work fast at the cafe though, so she’s more than happy to wait her turn. She has her phone on her hand, connected to her workstation at QC so she can still keep track on the less than legal program she’s running back at the office.

As she predicted, the line moves quickly and it takes less than ten minutes until she’s through the front door, close enough to read the special roast of the day.

She’s in the middle of deciding if she wants a bagel to go with her coffee when there’s a commotion at the front counter that distracts her and she inches up on her tiptoes to find out what’s going on.

_Of course._

It’s Oliver Queen, Starling City’s playboy extraordinaire, posing for photos with women who look completely star-struck by his presence. Oliver Queen, the very handsome heir to the Queen legacy who miraculously returned from being presumed dead mere months ago but seemed to take it all in his stride and had quite easily fallen back into his old habits.

Oliver Queen, her boss. Her boss’s boss, actually.  

She huffs and her lips twist into a disapproving frown as the line stops moving; everyone preoccupied instead with courting favour with Oliver. He doesn’t even seem to care that his antics are holding up the line, flashing his dumb smile and flirting the ladies around him.

“Not a fan, are you?”

She turns around and does a double take when she’s met with the playful smirk of one Tommy Merlyn. Oliver Queen’s best friend. She finds herself struggling to respond, not a situation she usually finds herself in.

“Uh... no, I just want to get back to work,” she says. “His preening is holding up the line.”

“Well, that’s Ollie for ya! Always gotta please the masses.”

“It doesn’t please _me_ ,” she mutters as she rolls her eyes and turns back around, ending the conversation. She doesn’t need or want the attention of men like Tommy Merlyn; she just wants her coffee and to get back to her workstation.

The line finally moves and she inches forward eagerly. Oliver it seems, has finally decided to take his posse of fans outside, much to her relief, as his bodyguard holds the door open-

His bodyguard.

Her blood runs cold and her heart flies into her throat. Her mystery warehouse man.

His _bodyguard._

It’s him. It’s him. It’s _him._

Her brain won’t shut up, the two words echoing on repeat in her head as she stares at the man.

 _That’s_ why he seemed familiar that night.

Wherever Oliver Queen goes, his bodyguard is never far behind. _Oh God_ . She’s seen him so many times, walking down the hall with Oliver, holding doors open for him - but he’s so quiet and so _boring_ so she’s never really taken notice. Something that she supposes works in his favour.

It all makes sense now, like pieces of a puzzle finally fitting together in her head. He’s basically Oliver Queen’s shadow. He can get Oliver’s credentials if he wanted to, use his login to plant the exploit on the network, and since Oliver has super administrative access to the servers, he doesn’t need anyone else’s permission to make changes to the network protocols.

Before she even knows what she’s doing, she’s stalking towards the man, fists balled by her sides, Tommy Merlyn’s alarmed ‘Hey, where are you going?’ falling upon deaf ears. It’s like she’s been possessed and by the time she even entertains the notion that this might be a really _bad idea_ , she’s tapping the man on his shoulder, trying to get his attention.

She sees the recognition flash across the man’s face the moment he turns to her. His eyes widen almost comically and he sucks in breath, stumbling backwards, colliding with a few customers who are trying to get into the cafe.

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little proud of herself for eliciting such a reaction from the big, bad Hood man. She clears her throat and swallows, steeling herself.

“Um, hi. Again.”

The guy’s gaze flicks over to his boss - _her_ boss too, she supposes, catches his eye and holds up a finger as he points outside. A strange look passes between the two men, but before Felicity can analyse it any further, he’s grabbing her, fingers curling around her forearm as he tugs her along with him out of the cafe.

“He-ey,” she protests, even as she follows him willingly. “You don’t have to manhandle me.”

He loosens his grip on her arm but doesn’t let go until they duck into a secluded alley behind the cafe.

“Who are you?” He asks without preamble, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Are you following me?”

She should be afraid of him. Probably should be calling the SCPD to report her potential murder at the hands of the vigilante and that they’ll find her poor dead body in the secluded alley she’d stupidly followed him into. But she doesn’t, because funnily enough, nothing about the man _really_ frightens her.

“No. Not following you no, but I’ve been trying to track you down, you know, on the internet. So maybe _half_ -following you? If you count that? Definitely not physically stalking you or anything, because that’s creepy. And I don’t have a death wish.” She pauses for a second and then tilts her head to the side.

His name comes to her easily now that she’s gotten over her initial shock. “You’re John Diggle.”

The man grunts and folds his arms over his chest. He’s playing at being completely calm, as if she hasn’t already completely figured out his secret, but Felicity can see he’s clenching his jaw, and there’s a bulging vein in his temple that says otherwise.

When he remains silent, she tries again. “I’m Felicity Smoak. From the I.T Department at QC... which you already know because I told you this that night. Morning, if you’re being pedantic. But see, the point is now you know who I am, and I know who you are and we’re sort of even now, right?”

“Even,” he repeats, a look of confusion crossing his features. He sighs, like he’s just lost some sort of internal debate he’s having with himself. “What exactly do you think you know, Ms. Smoak?”

Felicity purses her lips and grins. “Well, Mr. Diggle sir,” she starts as she clasps her hands together in front of her like she’s preparing for a huge presentation. In a way, it feels like she is.

“Diggle is fine,” he says curtly.

“Okay, Diggle. I’m good at my job. Like, _really good_ , despite what my supervisor wants people to think. I back traced the hack, and by the way, if you really wanted to steal data from QC, please never again use anything from the darkweb because wow, that hack was useless. What a rip off, I hope you didn’t pay too much for it, because - ”

“Ms. Smoak. Please.”

“Right, yeah, okay. Sorry, I babble when I’m nervous.” She counts down from three in her head, then licks her lips. “Long story short, I _know_ the servers are in that building you came out from and I also know that... well,” she drops her voice into a whisper. “I know that you’re the Hood.”

Diggle unfolds his arms and runs his hand down his face and rolls his neck. He sighs. “You... think I’m the vigilante?”

Felicity nods. She pulls out her phone and brings up the program she’s running back at the office, showing it to him.

“I’m running facial recog right now, though I guess I can stop the program since... well. You know. Anyway, I have all these articles and police reports and I’m tracking the Hood’s movements... you don’t really... care. Okay, nevermind. I know you’re the Hood. That’s... what I know.”

There’s a strange look on Diggle’s face, his brows are furrowed, eyes fixed on her in an intense stare. She thinks he might be slightly amused too, if the slight upturn of his lips is any indication. It’s not quite what she expects, not that she knows what an _‘Oh, crap this woman’s just figured out my secret’_ look, but he almost looks... pensive. Too calm.

So yeah, _strange_.

She pockets her phone when it doesn’t look like he’s about to acknowledge anything she’s just said. He does however keep looking at her in a weird, gentle, intrigued way so she takes it as a sign to continue.

“That’s what you needed the data for, right? Because you’re monitoring SCPD feeds and 911 calls and what not and you need real time information to try and not get caught...  and all of _that_ ,” she makes a circle with her finger to emphasise her point. “Means you need data - a lot of it - and that’s why you stole it from us.”

Felicity shoots him a tentative smile when she finishes her sentence, feeling triumphant that she figured him out. Ten points to Ravenclaw.

“That’s not - ”

Diggle’s interrupted by someone calling out his name and it startles them both. He steps in front of Felicity before turns around, as though he’s trying to shield her from whoever’s approaching them and she thinks it’s cute.

If he wasn’t also a stone cold killer, that is. It would have been cute.

“You here? Dig?”

It’s Oliver walking towards them, head cocked at them in confusion. When he realises that Diggle isn’t alone he frowns. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine. Ms. Smoak was just about to return to work,” Diggle replies smoothly. He fixes her with pointed look and she knows their conversation is over.

She nods in agreement. “Uh huh. Just had some questions regarding replacing Mr. Diggle’s security pass. All above board, totally nothing to worry about, and now I’m just gonna... go.”

Felicity edges past Diggle’s broad back and grins widely at Oliver, hoping it doesn’t look like she’s just confronted the criminal the entire police force is on the hunt for. Lying is _so_ hard.

Before she leaves the alley though, she turns around to face the two men.

“Don’t worry Mr. Diggle. I _won’t tell anyone_ that you lost your pass. Bye!”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks Nikki for reading through this for me :)


	3. Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hood pays Felicity a visit. Felicity returns the favour, or at least she thinks she does.

When Felicity returns to work after her unexpected meeting with Diggle, she’s bombarded with server malfunctions that preoccupy her for the rest of the day. Even riding the remnants of the adrenaline high from the alley doesn’t help her worsening mood and by the fifth time she snaps at another incompetent coworker for a stray line of code, she’s all but forgotten about her rather eventful morning.

It’s almost ten at night when Felicity finally drags herself out of the office, waving a friendly goodbye to the night janitor - someone, she realises dejectedly, that she sees more often than her actual friends.

She’s exhausted, hungry and so ready to just veg out on her couch, stuff her face with pizza, and watch mind numbing television until she eventually doses off for the night.

But fate, much to her displeasure, has other plans for her.

The moment she steps past the threshold of her apartment, she notices that the sliding door that leads out to her balcony is open, curtains billowing in the slight breeze that’s coming through.

Weird. 

The hair on the back of neck prickles and dread creeps in like ice through her veins. Then, a disembodied voice echoes around her in the darkness.

“Felicity Smoak.”

She yelps, drops her bag on the floor and stumbles backwards, her body slamming into her front door. Her heart lurches, fear twisting in her gut. “Who’s there? How do you know my name?”

Her fingers reach out to her light switch, but flicking it does nothing - bastard must have gotten to her circuit breaker - so she inches towards her kitchen as she tries to pinpoint where the intruder is. There are plenty of things she can use as weapons in the kitchen, and putting her kitchen counter between her and whoever this person is seems like a really good idea.

The mechanical, digitally manipulated voice speaks again. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her eyes roam her dark apartment and she tries to keep her voice steady. No point in letting the intruder know how shaken she is. “You know I’ve heard that phrase twice in the last three days now, which is twice more than I’m comfortable with so if you’re actually serious, can you please come out of the darkness and talk like a normal person? Not that... breaking into apartments is normal, but normal for someone who doesn’t want to hurt anyone else?”

“I can’t do that.”

It’s clear he’s using some sort of voice modulator to mask his voice, which is smart, her subconscious supplies. He sounds like a robot; a very grumpy, growly, robot, and completely unidentifiable. She randomly wonders if she should attempt to reach for her cellphone and record this entire exchange, just in case.  

“Voice patterns are totally traceable once the distortion is isolated, note to self, find out how,” she mutters into the darkness.

“I’m sorry?”

She turns her head in the general direction of where the voice is coming from and now that her eyes have adjusted to the lack of light, she can make out a dark silhouette standing by her couch. A dark, _hooded,_ silhouette.

Realisation dawns upon her.

“ _You!_ ” She scowls as she releases a sigh of relief. She allows to herself to relax, leaning her elbows on her kitchen counter as she cradles her head between her hands. The tension drains from her. When she looks back up at him, she’s glaring at him with indignation.

“I can’t believe you. Why would you break into my apartment? We _just_ spoke this morning! I nearly had a heart attack!”

The Hood ignores her outburst and slinks further back into the shadows before he speaks again. “You’ve put me in a very difficult position.”

She scoffs. “Seriously? _You’re_ in a difficult position? I should be calling the cops right now, but I’m not because you’re _you_ and I’m not a completely heartless person and you really haven’t done anything to me.” She eyes him warily and adds under her breath, “... _yet_.”

“Also, can you turn your voice modulator off? It’s freaking me out, and I already know what you sound like!”

“I’d rather not, and can you keep your voice down?”

Is that annoyance she detects in his voice? Like he expects her to _not_ be ticked of at the entire situation? _Wow,_ the nerve.

She wrings her hands in front of her and reassesses the situation. She can make out the bow that’s still attached to his back, so she’s not worried about him keeping his word about not hurting her, but there’s still something off about him. There’s an undercurrent of hostility between them that hadn’t been there the last two times she spoke to him and it’s unsettling.  

She huffs. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s in his Hood gear that’s tripping her up. She can’t see his eyes or his kind smile and him being in his suit just reminds her of all the footage she’s seen of him killing people. Or maybe it’s a Jekyll and Hyde kind of situation and he turns into a grumpy jerk at night when he puts on his Hood suit.

“Did... you just call me a grumpy jerk?”

Felicity grimaces, once again cursing her inability to keep her thoughts to herself. “To be fair, you _are_ being kind of a jerk, breaking into my apartment and scaring the living daylights out of me, considering we’ve met. _Twice_. I’ve seen more of you in the last few days than any of my other friends. Huh. That is actually so sad. Point is, you could be nicer to me.”

“We have...” The vigilante pauses and then clears his throat, almost as if he’d started to say something but changed his mind at the last second. “I’m not here to make friends.”

She rolls her eyes. Yeah, no kidding. “Okay, fine, what are you for then?”

He finally moves away from the corner of the room and starts pacing in front of the open sliding door. The soft glow from the street lamps outside catches him as he walks, illuminating bits and pieces of his outfit in a kaleidoscope of yellow and green.

She takes the opportunity to study him; it’s the first look she has of him that isn’t from grainy surveillance footage. He looks _good_. His tight leather pants accentuate an ass that’s just as tight, and the jacket under the hood does nothing to hide the solid muscles beneath it. She laments how much of an injustice business attire is because clearly she’d have taken more notice of him had she known he looked like that underneath his boring bodyguard exterior.

“I need to know if I can trust you.” He startles her out of her ogling, and she’s not even going to deny that that’s exactly what she’d been doing, but when his words register with her, feels a flash of anger go through her.

“Are you _kidding me_?”

“I just -”

She growls, interrupting him as she raises her hand, leveling him with the angriest glare she can muster. To her surprise (and not without a little pride) the vigilante doesn’t utter another word so she rounds the kitchen counter and takes a step towards him, fists balled by her side.

“If you can _trust me_? I could have called the SCPD any time between Friday night and now and you want to know if you can trust me? You’re the one hiding in the dark like a coward, not to mention breaking into my apartment, when you could have just as easily knocked on my door - wait, how did you find out my address - no, not the point.” She crosses her arms in what she hopes is an intimidating move. “How do I know if I can trust _you_ not to kill _me_ for what I know?”

It could be her imagination, but it looks like he ducks his head, shifting uneasily on his feet. Interesting. Does she ... _scare_ him? Huh.

He takes a moment as if he’s trying to control his frustration, exhales and responds. “Because I haven’t, and I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“And  _I_ haven’t called the cops. I even faked an entire report that I submitted to my boss for you. I told you I wasn’t going to tell anyone and I meant it.”

An awkward silence befalls them.

She licks her lips, wondering if she’s signed her own death warrant by arguing with him. She’s seen the damage he can do with his bow and arrows and even though she’s not the kind of person he usually goes after, he’s still a _criminal_ and his targets are all dead and suddenly she thinks talking back might have been a really, really bad idea, especially since she’s unarmed and -

“Okay then, Felicity.”

She’s pulled out of her thoughts by his quiet declaration.

“What?” The question flies out of her mouth unbidden and she winces. “Not that I’m questioning you. Or your decision. I’m very happy you’re not gonna kill me because I still have a million episodes of Friends to rewatch tonight, and _so much_ work to do tomorrow, but uh. Okay. You trust me now?Just like that?”

She swears she hears the vigilante chuckle under his breath, laughing at her lack of filter. It lasts for a split second before he’s silent again, as if he needs to remind himself he’s meant to be a ruthless criminal.

He nods at her. “Just like that. I assume you can handle the circuit breaker yourself. Um, enjoy Friends.”

Before she’s able to process what’s happening, he walks out the sliding door onto her balcony, hops over the railing and jumps. In what looks like a well-practiced move, he shoots an arrow with some kind of rope attached to it towards the building next to hers mid-flight and then he’s soaring in the air like something out of a movie.

Chasing him to the balcony, she peers over the edge of the railing and watches him disappear from sight.

“Wow,” she says in awe. “ _So_ cool.”

* * *

 

She’s not proud of it, but the day after the Hood’s appearance at her apartment, she picks up her phone on more than one occasion to call the SCPD. Her moral compass is going haywire and she _hates_ it, but every time her finger brushes over the keypad of her phone, a tiny voice in her head admonishes her, _‘You promised him, Felicity.’_

It’s definitely not the first time she’s flirted with the gray areas of what’s right and wrong - her time at MIT is a fine example of that. But being a naive hacktivist that sometimes hacked into federal databases is just _a little_ different from harbouring the secret identity of a wanted criminal so she’s torn.

In all the times they’ve met, both as John Diggle and as the Hood, she’d sensed a genuine kindness in him. Sure, he’d been weird and standoffish as the Hood, but he’d also been amused by her incoherent nervous rambling and surely that means that there’s more to the vigilante than just the emotionless killer the media paints him to be?

He’d also let her live knowing his secret, which is a huge plus in her opinion. She decides that she needs to know more about him - maybe have more conversations that don’t take place in the dark - before she tells the SCPD anything.

She convinces herself not to drive out to the Glades looking for the warehouse that she’s now a hundred percent sure is his base of operations. She wants to talk to him, but she doesn’t want to spook him, or be accused of stalking him (again), so instead she starts writing code for a program that she can potentially use as a peace offering to him.

She doesn’t want to think about _why_ she she feels like she needs a peace offering.

Or why she wants to talk to him again. Not even going there. Absolutely had nothing to do with wanting to see him in that leather suit again, up close this time. _Nope._

Exactly a week after the ‘Hood’s Visit’ - she thinks of the encounter in capital letters now, seeing as how it’s become an important milestone in her life (milestone being she did not die at the hands of the Hood) - she has her peace offering ready, in the form of a nifty little hack she’d written and installed on a thumb drive for him.

She shuts down her workstation fifteen minutes early at 4:45pm on Monday, studiously ignoring the dirty look her supervisor gives her. She’s earned the early mark anyway, so she just shoulders her bag and waves at other colleagues as she walks out of the office.

She’d snuck a peek into Oliver Queen’s far too easily accessible calendar earlier, and saw that he had no meetings past five that evening. That meant that John Diggle, ever the dutiful bodyguard, would be waiting for his (their) boss in the parking garage. She's hoping that the extra fifteen minutes is enough for her to catch Diggle alone before Oliver needs to be driven home.

With her heart beating a little faster than usual, she steps into the elevator, pressing the button that will take her to the basement. She has her thumb drive in her bag, and she’s kind of rehearsed what she wants to say to him, but she’s still nervous.

“This is not one of your greatest ideas Felicity Smoak,” she mutters under her breath, when elevator stops moving and the doors slide open. “When you’re arrested for aiding and abetting a known criminal, you’re going to think back to this day and regret this so much. And now I’m talking to myself in third person. Great.”

She makes her way to where she knows his company car is, familiar with where the executives park; in their own fancy, secluded corner of the parking garage.

“Hi, there.”

Felicity jumps, almost tripping over her own feet. She finds her footing quickly enough, and whirls around, heart skittering against her chest, indignance on the tip of her tongue at whoever had decided to scare her, until she realises that she’s come face to face with the bluest eyes she’s ever seen.

Eyes that belong to Oliver Queen.

She looks up at him in surprise - wow, he’s _tall_ \- and almost chokes. She knows he’s good looking, of course. He’d been splashed all over the news when he returned from the island; she’s seen him from afar at work and that morning at Jitters, but she’s never had the opportunity to see him _this close_. Never had the opportunity to appreciate the chiseled features of his face, the faint smattering of stubble along his angled jaw line, the crinkles in the corners of his eyes.

Wait, is he _laughing_ at her?  

“Felicity Smoak.” he states. Or he asks, she’s not sure, really, but he says her name with the tiniest tilt of his head and a hint of a smirk on his mouth. The way he says it, slow and careful, like he’s testing the syllables of her name on his tongue, stirs up something in the back of her mind, but she’s too busy being overwhelmed by _him_ to care.

She has to take a step back, if only to make the height difference between them a little less prominent. IT also givers her a chance to give him a quick once over, taking in the fitted suit he has on, buttons undone to show off the equally fitted shirt he has on underneath, and the perfectly ironed dress slacks. _Very_ nice. She clears her throat.  “Mr. Queen. Hi. Yes, you know my name.”

 _You know my name?_ Wow, really smooth.

“Mr. Queen is my father. Oliver, please.” He gives her a lopsided smile. “You were talking to Diggle on Monday. In the alley? I remember you.” He says as an explanation. He shoves his hands into his pockets and leans back against the one of the cars, an eyebrow quirked, the very image of someone completely at ease.

Unlike her.

She’s mildly surprised he remembers their encounter at all, brief as it had been but she is absolutely _not_  going to be flattered by it. _At all._ It’s just that his presence is throwing her off and she's a little flustered; she’d expected Diggle to be waiting at the garage, not Oliver, and in all the scenarios that she’d pictured in her head, making small talk with Oliver Queen was definitely not one of them.

She swallows and counts back from three. Wipes her hands down the skirt of her dress. Why for the love of God is she sweating? “Because he had a problem with his security pass. You were there, yeah.”

He looks at her strangely - of course he does, she’s being a complete idiot - but he nods anyway. “Sure was. Though you rushed past me before we were properly introduced. I glad we've fixed that. Can I help you with anything?”   

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and weighs her options. Stay and make small talk with Mr. Queen - _Oliver_ \- until Diggle shows up, or make up some excuse and leave. She’s leaning towards the latter but the thumb drive is burning a hole in her bag and she knows if she chickens out now she’ll probably never go through with it later.

Decision made. Small talk it is.

“Um, no. I'm uh. Just waiting for Diggle. John. John Diggle,” she winces, then continues. “To make sure everything’s good with you know. His security pass. Cause... that’s my job.”

“Hm.” His eyes narrow at her and then his gaze on her is slightly more intense, pointed. “Considering Dig’s been walking in and out of this building without any problems all week, I think it’s safe to say his pass is working now. I can take a message though, tell him you’re making sure it’s all sorted? If you’re in a hurry? He’s just across the street getting coffee.”

The voice in her head screams ‘Abort!’ repeatedly but unfortunately, as her mother likes to remind her, she’s stubborn to a fault and the way he’s looking at her makes her feel like he’s challenging her and she - well. She does not back down from any challenge. No matter how good looking said challenger is.

“No, no messages, that’s okay.” She licks her lips and tucks a stray lock of hair that’s come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. “I mean, you’re his boss. Our boss. Kinda. You can’t take messages for him, that’s... weird. If anything, he should be taking messages for you - or not, he’s your bodyguard, not your secretary... and I’m gonna stop talking now, and wait. Quietly.”

God, can the ground just swallow her whole right now? She’s babbling in front of Oliver freaking Queen.    

“Are you nervous?” he asks after a beat, then fixes her with a wolfish grin. “Because you don’t have to be. I don’t bite.”

He just stands there, hands in his pocket, smug and amused. Some part of her knows that this is why so many women fall at his feet. If she wasn’t already fully aware of his reputation, she might even consider him charming.

But she _is_ aware and while she does feel warm and tingly at the fact that he’s obviously flirting with her, she won’t let him be a distraction. It’s all just a game to him, and she’s better than that. She steels her resolve.  

“No, I’m not nervous. I just want to make sure Mr. Diggle’s pass is one hundred percent working.”

“You’re very dedicated. To your job, I mean,” he says. His hands come out of his pockets and he crosses them across his chest. “We’re lucky to have you.”

“Um.” She purses her lips in confusion. “I’m just an I.T. girl.”

“An I.T. girl so adamant on making sure my bodyguard’s security pass is working that she’s hanging around a dark,  underground parking garage after hours instead of going home.”

Something in the tone of his voice irks her. She glares at him. “You’re teasing me.”

Oliver chuckles, and the deep timbre of his voice strikes her low in her belly. “I’m not, I promise. Just... surprised at your tenacity.”

“I just need to talk to Mr. Diggle, okay. And I’m not ‘hanging around’, I park here too, you know. My car is right over there.” She waves her hand vaguely behind her to prove her point.  

“Even so. Dedicated.” A strange expression flashes across his face for a moment, but then the easy smile is back and Felicity thinks she might have been imagining it.

“Oliver?”

They turn around simultaneously.

“Dig.” Oliver greets the man walking towards them holding two cups of coffees. “Hey.”

“Ms. Smoak?”

“Diggle, hi!” Felicity exclaims, brushing past Oliver to intercept Diggle, standing between the two men. She abandons all pretense of being polite to Oliver and nudges him gently out of her way. “Remember me? Can we talk?”

Diggle blinks dumbly at her, clearly taken aback by her presence. 

Felicity smirks, and whispers, "Ha. Not so much fun when you're the one on the receiving end of a surprise visit is it?"

He doesn’t respond for a moment, but then Oliver reaches around her - God just how big is his arm span anyway? - and takes the coffees from Diggle. “I’ll wait for you in the car. You guys should talk, security passes are _really_ important to her.”

Felicity whips her head around. “You are so not funny,” she glowers.

Oliver grins and shrugs before walking away and her gaze absolutely does not (it does) linger on his ass. Sighing, she turns back to Diggle. “So... hey.”

He arches his eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re not following me?”.

So much for not getting accused of stalking him again.

She rolls her eyes and holds up a finger to keep him from saying anything more as she digs in her bag for the thumb drive she wants to give him.

“I might have taken a peek into Oliver’s calendar to find out where you’d be but that’s not following you, per se. I think. Maybe? It’s unclear,” she mumbles, mostly to herself.  

Her fingers close around the small, slim device and she lets out a quiet ‘Aha!’. “But only because I wanted to give this to you. As a sign of good faith, you know? So you don’t come visiting me in the middle of the night again asking if you can trust me?”

Diggle looks past her shoulders, presumably to check if Oliver’s out of earshot. He looks annoyed, forehead wrinkling, acting just a little cagey as if he can’t wait to get out of there. He takes the thumb drive from her gingerly. “And what is this?” he asks evenly.

Felicity sucks in a deep breath. “Well, since I foiled your dastardly ‘steal all of QC’s internet’ plan - ha, get it? Like in Scooby Doo? No? Nevermind.” She continues, “Anyway, I wrote this program for you. Plug this drive into your main server and the program will auto-execute. It sniffs out all the open internet connections in the city that are on unsecured ports and installs botnets on the machines so you can steal their bandwidth to,” her voice drops into a whisper. “Do your... Hood things.”

Diggle just stares at her blankly.

O-kay. Right. Layman’s terms. She attempts to explain it again.  

“Your old hack stole data from one place. From _here_. Real easy to detect, as we both know now. _My_ hack steals data from _everyone_ in the city connected to the internet. Think of it like you’re skimming off the top, for lack of a better phrase, from everyone in the city. No one notices a little spike of over-use here and there, so chances of detection are close to zero. And in the unlikely event that someone does notice, they won’t be able to track you because I am just that good.”

Diggle stares at the thumb drive in his hand. He doesn’t acknowledge that he’s heard anything that she’s said and when he looks back up at her, the expression on his face is one that she can’t decipher. Confusion? Suspicion? Awe? A mix of all three?

He clears his throat. “Why are you doing this?”

Felicity shrugs. She’s thought about this long and hard ever since the first night she crossed paths with him. The answer comes to her easily enough.

“I just want to help.”

“Ms. Smoak, I don’t think you understand-”

She cuts him off. “No, I understand just fine. I may not agree with your methods, I mean, you can try harder to leave less dead bodies around, but I’m more of a big picture kind of girl, you know? You’re getting rid of bad guys and making the city a little safer for everyone. And that’s a cause that I can get behind.”

She pauses then adds, “Also, if you ever need to know if you can trust me, well there’s your proof.”

Diggle’s chest heaves, like he’s just been socked in the gut. His lips are pressed in a thin line, almost like he’s worried. For her? Surely not.She’s once again struck by warmth in his eyes and in that moment she knows she’s made the right decision to be in his corner.

She’s not sure what to make of his lack of reaction, but she thinks the fact that he hasn’t returned her thumb drive means it’s a good thing.

Eventually, he sighs and rubs his hand down the front of his face. “So I just plug this in and it’ll work?”

She grins, and it feels like she’s just come out victorious from some sort of silent battle of wills. “Yup! Like magic!”

“Okay. Well, thank you, then. For this. I um, really appreciate it.” His eyes dart back to a spot behind her and he pockets the thumb drive, then looks back down at her. “I should go though. Can’t keep the boss waiting.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Felicity says, readjusting the strap on her bag.

She gives him another smile and a small wave before stepping away from him, making her way back to her own car. She can’t quite pinpoint what it is she’s feeling exactly, but she feels lighter, like she’s reached a pivotal point in her life that she cant turn back from.

And it’s _exhilarating._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments are appreciated :) 
> 
> Find me on twitter: @estheryam


	4. My Name Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver runs into some trouble and gets some unsolicited help.

Try to perfect his recipe for blueberry waffles.

Find ways to reconnect with Thea.

Make new excuses to avoid all meetings at Queen Consolidated.  

These are the things that go through Oliver Queen’s mind as he works out, appreciating being able to take the time to focus on the more mundane aspects of his everyday life. He enjoys some of these things; cooking and getting to know post-island Thea make him undoubtedly happy, but everything else that he has to deal with that's related to Queen Consolidated he merely tolerates. He has absolutely no interest in the family company, much to his mother's dismay and he only goes through the motions because he's expected to, and also because it gives him some semblance of normalcy and a welcome reprieve from living his _other_ life as a wanted vigilante. 

Recently however, he also finds himself distracted by the enigma that is Felicity Smoak, the I.T. girl who can talk a mile a minute, wears bright nail polish that matches her dresses, but also has one of the fiercest glares he’s ever been at the receiving end of in his entire life. The same pint-sized woman who had faced the Hood bravely in her own apartment and instead of freaking out, had decided to _help_  him. She fascinating.

She’s also insanely smart; genius, Mensa level smart, if his research is anything to go by. Her personnel file had been littered with glowing recommendations from her M.I.T. professors and it appeared that Walter had personally handpicked her to join Queen Consolidated once she graduated.

_Ugh. No._

He grips the metal bar just a little bit tighter and concentrates on gathering the burst of power he needs for his pull up, forcing himself to think of anything else but her because honestly, that's what got him into this stupid mess with Diggle in the first place.

Sweat rolls down his back as he contracts his abs again for one more repetition, summoning the last of his energy to push through the final jump. The bar clangs loudly as he makes it to top of the salmon ladder, his arms absorbing the impact of the metal against metal.

He lets go of the bar after that, enjoying the exhilaration of the short free-fall before his feet make contact with the ground, landing in a crouch to keep himself from falling over.

He sneaks a glance at Diggle and cringes inwardly when he sees that he’s still staring daggers at him from the far corner of their hideout, like he’s been doing for the last half an hour.

“If you think I’m letting this go, you’re wrong, Oliver,” his partner says when he catches Oliver looking.

Oliver exhales, closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. Fine. Best to just get it over with. _Fine_. 

“What do you want me to say, Dig?” He snags a towel hanging from one of the training dummies and wipes his brow. “What’s done is done, I can’t change that.”

“You can admit that for once, you made a mistake and -”

“It wasn’t a mistake, Diggle. I had to make sure we can trust her. I already told you, it was a tactical move,” he growls in exasperation.

Diggle’s been furious with him the moment they left the parking garage, berating him for being impulsive and irresponsible for further involving Felicity in their crusade. Oliver had taken the scolding quietly the entire ride back to the Foundry, hoping Diggle would ease up on him with time.

Wishful thinking.    

“And when were you going to tell me about this 'tactical move' exactly? We should have discussed it as a team. A whole week, Oliver. You didn’t tell me for _a whole week_ and I had to find out from _her_ that you broke into her apartment in the middle of the night?”

“It wasn’t the middle of the night.”

“Oliver.”

“Look,” Oliver sighs, slipping his shirt back on and rolling his neck to ease the tightness creeping into his muscles. He shakes his head and tries to get Diggle to see his point. “I had to make sure she wasn’t going to run to the police at the first opportunity she got. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think I had to. She’s not going to talk, and we’re safe. End of story.”

Diggle walks up to him then, waving Felicity’s thumb drive in his face. “Except she’s taken it upon herself to _help_ us, which means she’s part of this now. She doesn’t even know what _this_ is, Oliver! Hell, she still thinks I’m you!”

Oliver runs a hand through his hair, shrugging. “Yeah, that was a little unexpected. You’d think she’d notice your arms don’t fit in my jacket.”

Diggle scowls. “This is her life you're talking about, Oliver. Do you think this is a joke? Because it's not funny.”

“Huh. She said that to me too. I must be doing something wrong.”

“ _Oliver_.”

Oliver sinks into the desk chair in front of his computers and groans. “Diggle. I get it, I should have left her alone - but that was a week ago, and we can’t do anything about that now, so why don’t we just work with what we’ve got?”

“What exactly is it that we have? Because from what I can see, what we have,” Diggle looms over him, arms crossed over his chest. “Is this girl who is too curious for her own good, thinking she’s helping you with some noble cause. This puts her in danger, man. She’s one more variable we can’t control.”

“You,” Oliver quips with a cheeky grin, trying to dial back Diggle’s darkening mood. “She thinks she’s helping _you_ take down criminals. Not me. Because... you’re the Hood. To her, anyway.”

Diggle leans back, lips drawn in what is turning out to be permanent frown on his face. Off Diggle’s murderous look, Oliver backtracks and wipes the smile off his face.

In the short time he’s been working with Diggle, he’s come to realise that the older man sees right through his bullshit and has no qualms about calling him out about it so Oliver drops it. He understands Diggle’s concern. It’s not like he doesn’t know how dangerous it is for everyone involved, but still. All she’s done is give them this... thumb drive thing. No harm done.

Oliver pinches the bridge of his nose. “If anything happens, we can protect her, Dig.”

“We shouldn’t have to in the first place. This is not her fight.”

“It... I won’t let it get to that.”

It strikes him that she's basically still a complete stranger to him, so he can't explain it, but the moment the words spill from his mouth, he knows he means it. He fixes Diggle with an unapologetic stare, engaging him in an unspoken battle of wills. The tension between them stretches over the silence, blanketing them in unease.

Eventually, Diggle clears his throat and sighs in defeat.   

“You know what, I’m taking the night off, maybe I'll catch up with Carly." He shrugs into his coat and nods at Oliver, unable to keep himself from imparting one last piece of advice. "You should call it a night too, so you can get a better perspective on everything. The next name on your list isn't going anywhere.”

He hands over the thumb drive to Oliver and cocks his head towards the array of servers set up behind them. “Do whatever you want with this, but don’t come running to me when shit hits the fan and she becomes too much for you to handle.”

Oliver watches as Diggle walks away but doesn’t make a move to stop him. He won’t allow Diggle’s paranoia to get in the way of his mission. Instead, he takes the thumb drive, examines it for a quick second and walks over to his server stacks before he plugs it in. 

* * *

 

Okay.

Turns out breaking into Kord Industries without backup may not have been his best idea. _Reckless and irresponsible_ , the voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Diggle sneers at him. 

Bullets whizz past his head and Oliver has to swerve dangerously into a side alley, his bike skidding against the rain soaked ground. He barely manages to right himself before he has to duck again as another spray of bullets fly towards him, 

Definitely should have heeded Diggle's advice and taken the night off, not that he's ever going to tell him that. 

He hears tyres squealing in the distance and grits his teeth in frustration. Of course _they_ had back up. Absolutely nothing has gone his way tonight, from the extra security at Kord Industries to the unexpected downpour that caused him to miss a crucial target because his foot slipped - he fucking _slipped_  - and now he's dodging bullets trying to stay alive. 

Fun. 

Gunning the engine, he turns into a few random streets, hoping that he’s bought himself enough time to lose his pursuers. The rain makes his hood heavy and it weighs down against his forehead, uncomfortable and completely inconvenient. The water soaks right through the material of his hood and everything is just so very wet, reminding him too much of the island and he _hates_ it.

He finally finds himself on a relatively quiet road and slows down enough to press the call button on his wireless headset, hoping Diggle answers his call. When the call rings out and he connects to his voicemail Oliver sighs and hangs up with an annoyed growl.

_Fine._

He pulls a quick 180 and squeezes the accelerator just as he sees a set of headlights rushing towards him. Great.

They open fire on him and he’s forced to swing sharply into another alley to avoid crashing straight into them.

_“Oh, frack! Are those gunshots?!”_

A panicked voice that's _very_ female and very _not_ Diggle's half screams in his ear, startling him, and he’s suddenly skidding again against the asphalt, braking hard to make sure he doesn’t completely lose control of his bike.

He forces the bike to a stop, his boot scraping against the ground, a hand on on his headset and a whole litany of curse words ready to spill from his lips.

“Who the _hell_ is this?” he barks.

 _“Um. Wow, it worked. You plugged it in and it worked and I_ so _didn’t think you would actually use it but you did - oh, it’s me, Felicity! Surprise!”_

Good god, he really can’t catch a break at all tonight.

He has just enough sense to turn on his voice modulator before he makes his displeasure known. “What the hell?! Felici-”

He doesn’t get to finish before she speaks again. 

_“Wow, that’s a really angry voice. Are you in the middle of Hood stuff right now?”_

He wipes the rain from his eyes and glances down the alley to make sure he’s safe - for the moment, anyway - before he answers her. “Felicity,” he draws out the syllables of her name with barely restrained irritation. "How are you talking to me right now?”

_“Well, I may have written a backdoor into the hack I gave you - wait, don’t get angry, or angrier, okay - but it was really just in case of emergencies, you know? And I have Hood stuff on alert on my computer, right? So tonight, the entire S.C.P.D. feed lights up with a break in at Kord Industries and they think the Hood is involved, and then I checked the hack and lo and behold, you’ve plugged it in and it picked up on your headset’s frequency and -”_

Oliver interrupts her. “What you’re saying is that you were spying on me.”

_“Um. Yes.”_

“Felicity.”

_“Why do you insist on calling me Ms. Smoak when we meet in person, but Felicity when you’re the Hood? Do you get some weird need to be super formal when you’re bodyguarding Oliver or something? Because that’s silly and you can just call me Felicity, you know. I won't get offended."_

Wow. He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his jaw. He _really_ can’t deal with this right now.

He’s a sitting duck for as long as he stays where he is and he can’t afford to be distracted by her incessant rambling in his ear. He eases his bike out of the alley and navigates it back onto the main street. He hears sirens in the distance and his heart sinks. “Felicity, as much as I would like to stay and chat, I’m really kind of busy right now.”

 _“Uh huh, I know. Half the S.C.P.D. is looking for you  and also apparently the big, bad, heavily armed security team from Kord Industries. Busy indeed.”_  

He growls and doesn’t even try to mask his annoyance anymore. “Felicity, did you or did you not hear the gunshots before? You are meddling in things you don't understand, and I really don't have the time to -”

When Felicity cuts him off again, he knows he’s hit a nerve because her voice comes through as cold as steel, eerily calm.

_“Listen, don’t get all ‘grr’ at me. You’re in trouble and I told you I wanted to help. So suck it up and just listen to me. I'm tracking your GPS and I promise you will get out of this alive if you let me help you.”_

She takes a breath. _“Yell at me for this later. The S.C.P.D. is four streets from you right now so you should get going.”_

He's completely taken aback by her willingness to help; stunned into silence by the fact that she's refusing to back down, taking all of this in her stride. Then her words register with him and he picks up on the urgency lacing her instructions, so he tables his confusion for now and goes into survival mode. He picks up speed, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car as he tears down the street.

“You have visuals on the S.C.P.D. units and Kord Industries?” he asks for a confirmation, ignoring the fact that he really shouldn’t be enabling her like this. Diggle is so gonna lose his shit when he finds out. “And you have my location?”  

There’s a pause on her end of the call and for a split second he thinks maybe she’s disconnected but then her voice floats through his ear again, slightly distracted but steady and confident, accompanied by the faint sounds of rapid typing in the background.

_“Uh, yes. To both. One second, sorry, just hacking into the S.C.P.D's network... okay take a left now. And then right at the next set of lights.”_

Oliver doesn’t give himself time to second guess her and does as he’s told, for some unknown reason trusting her implicitly despite wanting to also strangle her for sticking her nose in his business.

_“Are you in a car?”_

“Motorbike.”

_“Oh, good. Perfect. You can squeeze into tiny little side streets, and they... cannot. Yay for us! Turn right into the alley off Holder Street and we should be - OH! I mean left, left, left! Do not go right, bad guys are there. I repeat, not right.”_

Oliver swears under his breath when he notices the bad guys she’s referring to and forces his bike in the other direction at the last minute, but not before a stray bullet catches the side of his bike.

“Felicity, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he snaps tersely into his headset. 

_“Hey, quit the attitude, dude. Totally new at this superhero sidekick thing, okay? Won’t happen again. I got this.”_

“You are _not_ my sidekick,” Oliver mutters as he realises with dread that Diggle is totally going to give him the biggest ‘I told you so’ when he finds out about this. “Just get me out of the hot zone, please.”

_“On it.”_

She keeps a running commentary from then on, updating him as she directs him through the city without further incident. A moment later, she lets out an loud _‘Yes!’_ in his ear and he winces at her volume.

 _“Thanks to me and my_ meddling _ways."_ Oliver doesn't miss the pointed sarcasm as she throws his words back at him. " _The S.C.P.D. is about to come face to face with Kord’s thugs so that’ll buy you some time to disappear. Hah! We win!”_

Relief washes over him at her words. Her exuberance is just a little bit contagious and a smile stretches over his lips. He relaxes and releases his tight grip on the bike’s accelerator, slowing down to a more reasonable pace.

Felicity rambles on about shortcuts and manipulating traffic grids for him and he really doesn’t understand anything she’s saying. Now that the adrenaline from trying to evade capture is slowly ebbing away and he's no longer too frustrated with her involvement tonight, he finds that her voice has a strange calming effect on him so he lets her chatter away in his ear.

 _“Are we going to your warehouse place?”_ she asks him after a while. _“I mean, I assumed, and that’s where I’ve been leading you to, but I never confirmed and I’m not actually sure - but the S.C.P.D.’s completely off your trail now so I thought it’s probably the best time to make sure...”_

“There is no _we_ , Felicity,” he grunts. “But yes.”

_“Oh, great, good. You’re almost there, then. Wow, I totally did not think I’d be doing this when I got into your server tonight.”_

“You shouldn’t have done that in the first place.”

_“Yeah, but aren’t you glad I did? You get to go home with a total of zero bullet holes in you, a super good thing, because that would have been such a waste a very fine body... not that I think about your body. I don't even know what your body - ah. Crap. I mean. Hm.”_

Oliver stifles a laugh as she trails off.

_“Ignore me, please.”_

He’s approaching the Foundry - what Felicity calls his _warehouse_ \- and he slows all the way down, killing the engine before hopping off his bike. The rain pelts at him relentlessly and he cannot wait until he gets inside and into dry clothes.

“Hey, Felicity,” he says as he holds onto the handles of his bike and pushes it towards the back entrance. He sucks in a breath. “My very fine bullet hole-less body thanks you. For tonight.”

“You’re welcome,” comes her response, but when he hears it, Oliver freezes on the spot.

Because he doesn’t just hear her reply in his ear. He hears it _in stereo_ ; the smooth cadence of her voice also coming from _behind_ him.

He swallows, shuts his eyes, and turns around slowly.

When he re-opens his eyes, she’s standing _right there_ , soaked to the bone in an oversized M.I.T. sweatshirt and loose fitting sweatpants. Her hair is hanging in wet tendrils down her shoulders, cellphone in one hand and her tablet in the other. Her glasses are dotted with raindrops but she just stands there staring at him, unfazed by the fact that he's armed with a deadly bow and arrow and she's... not.  

 _Adorable_. The word flits into his brain unbidden. Cute. Possibly also slightly pissed off.

He’s rooted to the spot, unable to come up with anything to say to her.

And then slowly, Felicity tilts her head, squints and bites down on her lower lip. Her stare is piercing and it feels like she can see right past his hood and straight into his soul.

When she finally speaks, gone is the teasing lilt in her voice; instead it’s replaced with a grim, accusatory, almost angry tone. There’s fire in her eyes and suddenly he’s not sure what scares him more: avoiding stray bullets or having to face Felicity when she's looking at him like she's about to rip him into shreds.

She takes one step forward towards him, nose flared, lips pressed into a thin line. “ _You_ ,” she snarls, her voice fierce and unwavering. “Are _not_  John Diggle.”

Yeah. Felicity definitely scares him a  _lot_ more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Hope this chap lives up to your expectations, if you had any :) 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	5. When It Rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hell hath no fury like a Felicity scorned. Kind of.

That lying bastard.

That stupid, moronic, no good, lying, bastard.

 _“You_ _.”_   Her fingers curl around her phone a little tighter, every cell in her body radiating with barely restrained anger. She enunciates her next words, making sure as hell that the vigilante knows she’s not playing around. “Are _not_ John Diggle.”

In all fairness, she’s angry with both herself and the Hood. Herself, because she should have figured all of this out sooner - good job, genius - and with him because he made her think he was someone he wasn’t, and if there is one thing Felicity Smoak has absolutely no tolerance for, it’s dishonesty.

She can’t believe she hadn’t put it all together before tonight - before the last fifteen seconds, really, especially since she  _knew_ in the back of her mind that there were things that didn’t make sense.

Like when John Diggle seemed so uncomfortable every time they spoke and appeared clueless about the Hood’s visit to her apartment.

Or the fact that Diggle insists on calling her Ms. Smoak but the Hood calls her by her first name, just like  _Oliver Queen_ did - but she had been too busy _swooning_ to notice, her traitorous brain supplies - 'Felicity’, like he’s curling his tongue around every syllable of her name, savoring it with quiet reverence.

 _Stop._ Do not think about his tongue.

The Hood hasn’t moved a muscle since he turned his head around at the sound of her voice. His shoulders are stiff, back ramrod straight as he keeps a tight grip on his motorbike. Felicity waits him out as she stares defiantly at his half turned face, daring him to try and refute her accusation.

She’s granted her first full view of the bow and a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back and she wonders for a second how they’re attached to him. Probably some sort of magnet, or industrial strength velcro? Are his arms that flexible that he can reach around to grab the bow from his back whenever he needs to use it?   

Eventually, he decides to turn around fully to face her and she’s graced with the sight of his broad chest, water sluicing down the material of his _very fitting_ jacket that clings to every hard plane of his upper body. She has to force herself to keep from glancing down at his legs - though she already knows how well those pants fit him, so really...  

Wow, she has to stop this. Now. She’s supposed to be _angry_ at him.  

His fingers uncurl from the handlebars of his bike and he pushes down on the kickstand so the bike stands on its own without his support. He folds his arms over his chest, drawing himself up to his full height like as if he thinks he can use the advantage to intimidate her.

 _Wrong_ , buster.   

Felicity accepts his silent challenge and instead of backing away like he expects her to, she takes a small step forward. The hood that usually does a half-decent job disguising his face is rendered ineffective from her current vantage point and for the first time in weeks, she’s afforded the clearest glimpse of his face.

She’s looking up - she can’t help but notice _again_ , that he’s very tall - into blue eyes that are simmering with unidentifiable emotion, a stony jaw line that betrays absolutely nothing about what he’s thinking, and a face that unmistakably belongs to Oliver Queen.

Even standing right in front of him, with the undeniable proof before her, she’s still having trouble reconciling it. Prodigal son, college dropout, playboy heir to the Queen legacy, miraculously returned from the dead after five years, kind of almost her boss Oliver Queen - is the big, bad Hood.

It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

His jaw twitches like he’s grinding his teeth, the only movement in his otherwise stoic exterior. The fact that she’s managed to render him speechless feels extremely satisfying.

Felicity: 1, Hood: 0.

“If you’re trying to intimidate me, it’s not working,” Felicity says coolly, breaking the tension-ridden silence between them.

“Because your mascara, or eyeliner, or whatever it is you’ve used on your dumb face is so _not_ waterproof and you look like Sandra Bailey in seventh grade when her boyfriend dumped her and she cried all night even though she had a face full of makeup, and let me tell you that was not a pretty sight at all and you look _exactly_ like Sandra Bailey right now. That is to say, in summary, you don’t scare me.”

His lips part in shock.“My _dumb face_?”

Oh, for the love of God, he’s unbelievable.

“One, turn off that stupid voice modulator, and two, _that’s_ what you got from all of that? You’re offended that I called your face dumb?!”

Felicity steps into his personal space and shoves the hand holding her tablet into his folded arms as hard as she can. He doesn’t budge - of course not, what was she thinking? - but it does make him press on something along the inside of the lining of his hood.

“Felicity.”

The voice modulator is well and truly off and there it is again, the way he says her name, like it’s a forbidden prayer for the undeserving, sending tingles down her spine that she absolutely does not want to analyse any further. “Felicity,” he repeats. “Please just let me -”

“Oh no, nuh uh,” she jabs him again with her tablet - if she used her finger, she’s sure she’d break it against his rock hard chest. “Don’t _Felicity please_ me. You’re not getting out of this one, you jerk. You _lied_ to me! You and Diggle played me for _weeks_ and the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing makes so much sense now because you’re actually two different people and - hey, _let go of me_!”

Oliver wraps a hand around her wrist, not so tight that it hurt, but enough to derail her from further rambling. She tries to wrench her hand out of his grip but to no avail. He takes another step towards her, obliterating any sort of space between them, trapping their hands between their bodies, his head looming over hers.

His voice is gruff and steady, and is that... a hint of concern in his voice? “Felicity, we need to continue this conversation inside.”  

She stumbles back almost slipping on the rain-slicked ground. “What? No! Don’t tell me what to do. And I am absolutely _not_ walking into your secret lair of doom so you can kill me and hide my body and then dissolve my bones in acid. I’m blonde, but I’m not that blonde, thank you very much.”

He lets go of her hand but doesn’t move away. He’s frowning at her, eyebrows furrowed.

“Why do you keep thinking I’m going to kill you when I've told you that I won’t hurt you?” he asks her in exasperation.

“Maybe because you’re a criminal wanted for  _murder_?” she hisses in disbelief. “Maybe because you have a bunch of really sharp arrows on you right now that you can easily stab me with? Or I don’t know, maybe it’s because you’re a. _Big. Fat. Liar!?”_

Oliver deflates and sucks in a really long breath. He ducks his head and uses the back of his hand to wipe the rain from his forehead.

“Okay.” He rubs his gloved hands together, like he’s choosing his words very carefully. “In my defense -”

Felicity scoffs. “Oh, this is going to be good.”

“It was more of an omission of facts than an actual lie -”

“An _omission_ _of facts?_ Do not get cute with me Oliver Queen!”

The guy doesn’t even have the decency to look the least bit contrite. Nervous, yes. But not an ounce of remorse is reflected on his face. How does he not understand the position he’s put her in? Fury simmers just under her skin.

“I’ve done like a million illegal things for you tonight, risked my career for you and I am literally standing in this  _God awful weather_ -”

He cuts her off with a wave of his hand. “Right, but I didn’t ask you to do any of that, so really... You _did_ say you wanted to help.” The corners of Oliver’s lips tilt upwards as he shrugs nonchalantly.

Which makes Felicity completely _lose it._

“Oh my God, is everything just a joke to you?!”

She doesn’t care that her voice is practically bouncing off the walls around them, doesn’t care that anyone walking past can overhear them, and she definitely does not care that Oliver actually flinches and takes a step away from her as she seethes. 

“You use me for my skills to get whatever you need done, screw the consequences? Classic Oliver Queen behaviour I suppose. Why should you care about anyone else you drag into this? It’s all just _so funny_ isn’t?! Is that why Diggle played along with the ruse too, because isn’t it hilarious? Ha-ha Felicity Smoak, certified genius, completely bamboozled by the Hood?  I can’t believe I thought Diggle was nice. Wow, totally misjudged him.”

“It’s... No, You’re right. Diggle wanted to tell you he truth. I just...”

Her ire doesn’t allow him to finish speaking. “You wouldn’t let him, of course not. Because everything is about _you_. You messed with me to protect yourself, and let me think I was helping and...” she trails of as she pauses to take a breath. “I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.”

The magnitude of what she’s done in the past couple of weeks hits her like a freight train.

Misuse of company resources, stealing bandwidth from _the entire city_ , she hacked into the S.C.P.D., for Christ’s sake. And _then_ set them up for a showdown with Kord Industries’ very heavily armed men.

Oh God, people probably  _died_. A chill runs through her veins. What has she _done_?  

Suddenly, the fight drains out of her. She pushes a clump of wet hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear, then squares her shoulders. “You know what, Oliver? It’s not worth it. You’re not worth it.”

She clamps her tablet under her armpit and shoves her now probably very waterlogged phone into her pocket. “I’m gonna go now. Don’t follow me. Or break into to my apartment again. Please.”

She starts to walk away but then she hears him plead quietly from behind her. “Felicity, please, just let me explain.”

It stops her in her tracks. She doesn’t know if it’s because of the resignation she hears in his voice, or if it’s just her curiosity getting the better of her again, but she doesn’t take another step.

“I thought it would be better if you didn’t know. If the cops ever had to question you, you wouldn’t be able to tell them anything.”

Felicity sighs and turns to face him. “I’m already an accessory to whatever it is you’re doing; the crimes have been committed. It makes no difference whether I know who the man behind the Hood is. The fact that I helped at all makes me a part of all of this. Jail time for future Felicity either way!”  

“I - I didn't think of that. I’m sorry.”

Huh. _That_ was unexpected. She doesn’t think Oliver Queen has ever been known to apologise to anyone, but here he is, saying sorry to _her_ \- the woman who’s just spent the last twenty minutes berating him for being a liar. She purses her lips, unsure what to make of his apology.

“Please, can we just go inside now? I promise I’ll tell you everything, then if you still want to go, I won't stop you.”

She shakes her head. “ _No._ I’m done with -”

“Felicity, you are completely drenched and I’m willing to bet that as upset as you are with me, that is not why you’re shivering. So please, just humour me and and let me get you into something dry and we can... talk.”

She considers his request, gnawing on her bottom lip. She _is_ cold, and her soaked sweatshirt is heavy and gross and sticking to her uncomfortably. She doesn’t even want to _think_ about the state of her hair.

On one hand, she wants to go home and just forget everything that’s happened tonight, but on the other, she’s _very_ curious about seeing the inside of his lair. Has been since that first night she stumbled upon it.

It’s a dangerous choice to make. One option will probably lead her back into the dark chasm of all things Hood related, the total opposite of ‘being done’ with him. Not to mention there’s still a slight possibility he’s leading into a trap so he can _silence_ her. The other option means she gets to go home to her relatively comfortable but boring, life of an I.T. girl.

“Felicity?”

She cuts her eyes to him at the sound of her name. He looks ridiculous - whatever he’s smudged around his eyes makes him look like a raccoon - but where he was all sharp edges and stony fierceness before, he’s mostly subdued now. The anger that she'd been holding on to has tapered away to muted annoyance and much to her chagrin, her inquisitive nature is winning.  

She throws caution to the wind.

“Fine. But I am going to scream as loud as I can if you so much as touch the _shadow_ of your arrows.”

* * *

  

If someone had told her when she woke up this morning that by midnight, she’d be cold, wet and following Starling City’s resident vigilante to secret lair, she’d have asked if they were high. But here she is, with nothing but her phone, tablet and car keys, trailing after said vigilante willingly into aforementioned secret lair of doom.

“It’s not a secret lair.”

Felicity blinks. Winces. “I said that out loud.”

Oliver half turns to her, an eyebrow arched, amused. “Um, yeah?”

She huffs with discontent but says nothing, not wanting to further embarrass herself. They get to a rolling door behind the building and she watches with interest as he enters a string of numbers into a keypad. She hears a click when he’s done and the door rises slowly, granting them entry.

She gapes at him in disbelief as he pushes his bike inside once the door rolls up high enough. “That’s... _that’s_ your security?”

Oliver narrows his eyes at her. “Excuse me?”

She shakes her head and follows him inside, ducking her head just in time as he pushes a button to get the door rolling back down behind her.

“I can’t believe you’re using a security system probably from the _dark ages_ to hide your secret lair. What are those numbers anyway?”

“It is  _not_ from the dark ages and this is not a -”

She ignores him and rattles on. “Is it your birthday? Bet it’s your birthday. You seem like a birthday guy. Do you know how easy it is to crack a system like this? I can probably do it in a minute,” she mutters, not noticing that Oliver is practically vibrating with irritation. “Can’t believe the entire existence of your secret lair is hinged upon someone knowing your _birth -_ ”

“ _Felicity_!”

“ _What now?!”_ She startles even herself at how loud her voice is.

Oliver lets out out a suffering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. He slides his hood backwards, down past his head so his face is completely exposed and uses his sleeve to wipe the rain and what’s left of the black stuff off his face.

“Just... follow me,” he mutters. He parks his bike and throws a tarp (where did he even get that without her noticing?) over it. His hand reaches out to flip a switch on the wall and the lights come on.  

Felicity lets out a bark of laughter as she turns around, surveying the space around her. It’s _empty_. Nothing but floor space and bare walls.

“Uh, yeah, o-kay,” she snorts. “You’re going for the minimalist thing, I’m guessing? Less is more? Where are your servers anyway?”

Oliver growls under his breath, like a bear, she thinks. A very grumpy one too. She can’t make out what he’s saying, but he’s moving again, walking quickly across the empty room so she scrambles after him. Right. Duh, this is the _decoy_ secret lair.

They arrive at a door at the back of the room and he keys in another string of numbers into a keypad next to it. He pauses before he hits the ‘Enter’ key. “Do not say anything else about my security,” he warns.

“Fine,” she says as she rolls her eyes. “But please note I’m adding it to the ever expanding list of things I am displeased with you about.”

When they walk through the door and come upon a set of stairs leading down into more darkness, Felicity laughs out loud. For a moment, she thinks she’s losing her mind. In the last half an hour she’s ping-ponged between being furious, betrayed, defeated, and now she’s... _laughing._

Oh God, she’s really going crazy. She’s laughing about following the Hood down into is secret lair without a care in the world.

“Can you stop calling this a secret lair?” Oliver grumbles from somewhere in front of her and she snaps her traitorous mouth shut. A hum fills the room and she blinks as her eyes adjust to the light that comes on in the room.

She has to hold back another bark of laughter as she sees what’s spread out on the floor below her. “Um. Hello, Oliver? This is the _basement_ of an abandoned building, and it’s gloomy and dark and depressing, and smells really funny. Newsflash, this is _so_ a secret lair.”

“Felicity.”

Ignoring him, she walks down the stairs slowly, taking in everything around her. She’s not sure what she expected, but it isn’t... this. A couple of computers on a desk in the middle of the room, a space sectioned off for where she assumes he works out (what is that tall ladder thing anyway?), a really creepy mannequin in the corner, and just more _space_.

“This place is weird,” she says. Her shoes leave wet footprints on the floor as she makes her way to where his computers are set up. “Kinda basic.”

"It gets the job done,”Oliver offers as he walks across the exercise mats to a dark corner of the basement.

"Right, of course The job. Which is what, exactly?” she mumbles mostly to herself. She dumps her tablet and her phone onto his desk. She scowls. “Lie to innocent I.T. girls?”  

She runs her fingers over the top of his monitors, itching to turn them on to see what kind of system he has working for him. Her head swivels round and she takes note that there’s a couple of other doors within the room that lead elsewhere - a fact she stores for another time.

She’s engrossed in taking it all in that she doesn’t notice until almost too late that Oliver’s standing in front of her, holding out a pile of clothes. She trips over his feet and collides into him with an _‘Oof!’_ and his hand shoots out to close over her waist to steady her.

“Holy sh- you’re hard.” She catches herself a second too late. “Not _hard_ hard, hard like, your chest I mean, not other parts of you. Because of your muscles and bone - no, _not bone_! You’re _solid.._. is what I mean.’

Oliver just raises an eyebrow at her, trademark smirk on his face.

“Uh huh.”

“Shutting up now.”

They speak over each other and a strange awkwardness befalls them. His gloved palm is still around her waist, pressing against her soaked sweatshirt and it sends a jolt of electric through her.

Standing this close to him feels different from when she’d confronted him outside. Without the haze of anger that had blanketed her the entire time she’d been yelling at him before, and without his hood obstructing his face, she feels much too exposed. Naked to his gaze. It's scary.  _Thrilling._

As if he can read her mind, Oliver takes small step backwards and the thick uneasiness between them dissipates. He removes his hand from her waist and clears his throat, nodding towards the stairs they just walked down from. ”Dry clothes as promised. Bathroom is back up the stairs,”

Felicity takes the clothes from him and swallows. “Uh. Thanks. I’ll just go. I mean, I’m going and then coming back. Not just going. Because you promised to tell me everything and I'm holding you to it.”

Oliver nods. “I’ll be here.”

And with that she scurries off back up the stairs.

* * *

 

 The bathroom he sends her to is small, plain, but functional. There’s a small sink under a mirror and a couple of stalls behind it. There’s a rack of folded towels by the sink so she snags one and rolls it out. She wraps her hair in it, squeezing the excess water out, and unfolds another towel for her body.

It’s a little weird stripping in the bathroom of what is essentially the Hood’s domain. Base. Or whatever he calls it, since it’s _not a secret lair._ She’s taking her clothes off in his space. Where she's sure he's also been naked. Her skin tingles at the thought.

She makes quick work of her sodden clothes, scrunches them up into a ball and leaves them in the sink. Her bra’s useless, so are her panties, so despite the warning bells going off in her head, she decides to forgo them and just pulls on the shirt he gave her.

She catches a whiff of something divine as she slips he head through the collar of his really soft Henley. Probably a mix of his cologne and laundry detergent. Woodsy and fresh, and _male_. She shivers involuntarily. Yum.

She very purposely does not think about the fact that these clothes - and the boxers she’s currently pulling on _commando_ \- are his. Oliver Queen’s. The same clothes that have touched his skin, are now on her skin, keeping her nice and dry and comfortable.

Hngh. God. _Stop_.

She flings the bathroom door open before her mind wanders even more. She starts walking down the stairs back to Oliver, but stops abruptly halfway down when the basement comes back into her sights because. Well.

Oliver Queen is walking around the basement naked.

Her mouth falls open.

Okay, he’s not naked. He’s shirtless. Gloriously shirtless with a towel slung around his neck, his hair sticking up in every direction like he’s just given it a vigorous drying. He’s still wearing the green leather pants, damp from the rain so it’s hugging his hips oh so deliciously as he walks around checking on the computers.

She’s not drooling. Nope. She wipes her chin anyway, just to make sure.

He’s... positively statuesque. Every muscle looks like it’s been carved out of marble. And his abs. Dear God, _his abs_. Chiselled - the word pops into her brain helpfully. She doesn’t think she’s seen anything that defined in her entire life. He’s built like a goddamn Greek God.

He has tattoos too, she realises once she drags her eyes away from his cheese grater abs. More than a few. A big one on the back of his shoulder - a dragon, maybe? She can’t quite tell. A string of Chinese characters down the side of his abdomen just above his top of his pants, a weird star thing above his left pectoral.

And scars. So many scars. She keeps her eyes on him as she unfreezes and continues down the stairs. The raised edges of healing skin adorn most of his skin; there’s not much left of it that’s untouched.

He has battle scars, and they don’t look recent so they’re not a result of him running around town as the Hood. The revelation floors her. What the _hell_ happened to him on that island?   

“Wow,” she says on a sigh.

Oliver, clearly having heard the sigh, turns to look for her, finally spotting her on the stairs. He catches her off guard and she averts her eyes quickly, feeling the warmth creep up into her cheeks. “Sorry, I wasn’t... staring. At all.”

“It’s okay. You um. Turns out I gave you my last clean shirt, so...”

She hears him chuckle at her but she’s determined not to look at him for fear of embarrassing herself even further. Don’t trip on the way down the stairs, she tells herself. Don’t trip, don’t trip.

She makes it to the bottom of the stairs without incident and unwraps the towel around her head, handing it over to him, careful to look at a spot over his shoulder and not anywhere _lower_. “Well, thank you for this noble sacrifice,” she tells him, gesturing down at his clothes that she’s wearing.

“I’m nothing if not noble,” he responds, his voice low and throaty. The gruff timbre of his voice is a surprise, and she makes the mistake of looking straight at his face as he speaks.

He’s staring unashamedly at her, raking his eyes down her body and her skin heats up under his scrutiny. He hangs the towel over his forearm, and his fingers come up to pluck at shoulder of the shirt she’s wearing, drifting close to the bare skin of her neck. “I’m glad they fit you.”

Felicity gulps. Too much, it’s too much. She's absolutely not letting Oliver Queen get under her skin. She takes a step back to create some much needed space between them. He just keeps staring at her.  

“So, anyway.” She forces herself to move, brushing past him, unable to withstand the intensity of his gaze any longer. She sits down on the chair in front of his computers and clasps her hands together. Her eyes dart quickly to his screens and notices he’s running some sort of name-search. Another one to file for later.  

She looks back at Oliver expectantly.

“You were gonna tell me everything.”  

Oliver nods and walks up to her, then leans his hip against the edge of the desk, crossing his feet in front of him. Once again, placing his dumb, overly sculpted chest way too close for comfort. Does this guy have no concept of personal space? Felicity rolls the chair backwards just a little bit.

He opens his mouth to speak but before anything comes out there’s a loud noise from the top of the stairs and then a telltale sound of a door opening and slamming shut.

“You here, man?” someone calls out.

Felicity gasps, heart rate picking up speed at the fear of being discovered, eyes seeking Olivers in her panic.

To her surprise, he doesn’t even look mildly worried. “Down here,” he replies, loud enough so his voice echoes around the basement.

Felicity swivels her chair around back to face the stairs and her heart nearly gives out when she sees John Diggle walking casually down towards them. Until he stops in his tracks. Eyes widening when he spots her.

“Ms. Smoak?”

“Diggle!”

Diggle’s voice drops into a dangerous hiss. “Oliver?”

“Hey, Dig.”

“ _Damn it, Oliver.”_

Felicity watches as Diggle cocks his head, folding his arms slowly over his chest. He fixes his eyes on Oliver, shirtless and unperturbed, and then his gaze falls on her, swathed in Oliver’s Henley and his boxers, hair damp and disheveled from the rain. His eyes narrow, lips parting in a small ‘O’.  

Panic swells from within her when she realises what this must look like to the other man. She blurts out the first thing that comes to her mind.

“I didn't have sex with him!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow did I totally have so much trouble with this one. Yikes. 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	6. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of talking happens. Seriously.

_“I didn’t have sex with him!”_

Oliver chokes at the declaration and his head swings in Felicity’s direction so fast he very nearly falls off his perch at the edge of the desk. He whispers harshly to her, “You can’t just -”

“You _what?_ ” Diggle’s voice thunders around them and Felicity cringes.

“Didn’t. I said _didn’t_ have sex, right? We didn’t. There’s actually a real, legitimate, non sex-related reason why I’m wearing his clothes and he’s not wearing any.” Felicity babbles on, probably thinking she’s being helpful. “Besides, look at this place. You’d probably get tetanus if you even tried to... uh Oliver, _Oliver_ , why’s he making that face?”

Oliver takes one look at Diggle and moves to stand in front of Felicity, blocking her from Diggle’s line of sight. He holds up his hands in an attempt to placate him. “Look, Dig -”

“What the hell is she doing here, Oliver?” Diggle bellows as he marches up to them, jaw twitching. Before Oliver even has a chance to protest, Diggle’s hauling him away from Felicity, dragging him aside. He casts one backward glance at Felicity, pleading, but she has an amused smile on her face and she shrugs in mock defeat.

Wow. She's _no_ help at all.  

Diggle has a really tight grip on his forearm, and Oliver has to work to wrench it out of his grasp before the circulation to his hand is cut off. He doesn't think he’s ever seen Diggle this angry and honestly, Oliver is _so completely done_ with people being angry with him tonight.

All he wants to do is to be left alone to lick his wounds after the disaster that had been his attempt at breaking into Kord Industries. Instead, he’s had to face a very irate Felicity, reveal his identity _and_ his base to her, and to top it all off, now Diggle’s here, giving him the dirtiest look and he knows he’s about to get an earful from him too.  

“Dig, listen to me.” He doesn’t hide the frustration ebbing from his words. “It’s late, and I would really prefer it if -”

Diggle shakes his head, not having any of it. “What makes you think I care what you want?”

Oliver sneaks a glance at Felicity and sees that she’s busying herself with his computer, typing furiously. He turns back to Diggle. “It’s fine, it’s all taken care of, she’s not going to be a problem.”

“She is _here_ and she knows who you are, how is this _not a problem_?!” Diggle snaps at him. He doesn’t even try to keep his voice down, and Oliver swears that even the cabinets are rattling.

Their exchange has definitely caught Felicity’s attention now and he can see her rolling her chair towards them slowly in his peripheral vision.

Diggle carries on anyway. “How - _why_ is she here, Oliver?!” He gestures wildly around them. “Did you break into her apartment again? Make her follow -”

“Hey!” Oliver cuts him off with an angry yell, matching Diggle’s volume. “I didn’t _make_ her do anything! She’s the one who spied on me tonight with her hack thing and she came here all by herself to confront me, and she - _what_ -”

There’s a sharp pain in the centre of his chest, forcing him to stumble back. He looks down and amidst all the arguing, neither of them notices that Felicity’s elbowed her way between them, arms akimbo, forcing the two men apart.

“Stop this right now,” she commands, glaring at him for a second then pinning her stare on Diggle. The other man seems wither under her gaze, much to Oliver’s satisfaction.

“ _She_ is right here and _she_ would very much appreciate it if you stop talking about her like she isn’t.” Felicity says. She gives them a look that translates into a silent warning.  “If I put my hands down, can we all talk about this with our inside voices, like civilised people instead of screaming our lungs out?”

Diggle merely nods, quick to agree with her. What a kiss ass.

Felicity nods, pleased, then turns to look at Oliver expectantly. She pokes at him with a very sharp fingernail and he scowls at her. “And you?”

Diggle raises his eyebrows at him from over the top of Felicity’s head.

“Fine,” Oliver says through his teeth.

“Good,” Felicity chirps around a smile, without a trace of her earlier ferocity in her voice and she’s going to give him an emotional whiplash if she keeps up with this.

“Glad we have an agreement.” She pats him against his bare chest like she would a good dog. And then, much to his surprise, she _lets her hand rest ther_ e. 

Oliver goes still at the prolonged contact and he sucks in a breath.

No one - well, other than when Diggle patches him up - has dared to touch him like this without permission since his return. Mostly because he expects them to recoil with disgust, or worse, _pity,_ when they see the permanent reminders of his time away.

But not Felicity, it seems. Not this tiny, curious woman, with her head tilted to the side as she stares unabashed at his body, who not only hasn’t noticed his hesitation, but seems in _awe_ of the various markings littering his skin.  

He can’t help but glance down at her hand, watching as it trails down his bare chest slowly, as if everything is in slow motion. Her slim fingers linger along the edges of his Bratva tattoo, bright blue fingernails skimming over the ridges of his abs unashamed.

He doesn’t dare to breathe as he allows her the time to examine him, basking in the tingle of warmth rippling outwards from each point of skin-on-skin contact. He can’t remember the last time anyone’s touched him this delicately and with such feather-light precision. He wants more. Of this. _Of her_.  

Diggle clears his throat and it makes them both jump apart. Her fingers fly from his skin like she’s been burnt, and his head shoots up to look at her. Her eyes are wide with shock, cheeks tinged pink like she can’t believe what she just did.

He wants to reassure her that it’s okay but when he opens his mouth, a shirt lands on his face. When he pulls the offending material away, Diggle’s glaring at him over an open gym bag and Felicity has a hand over her mouth, presumably hiding a laugh.  

“I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if you put on a goddamn shirt before we start talking,” Diggle mutters as he pulls Felicity away from him.

* * *

 

 

Diggle doesn’t allow Oliver anywhere near Felicity for the next ten minutes. The two of them huddle into a corner and Diggle very pointedly turns his back to Oliver, a move that screams ‘You stay out of this Oliver, this is between me and Felicity now.’

Despite the gnawing pit in his gut - what the hell can they be talking about? - Oliver leaves them alone, pulls on Diggle’s spare shirt and focuses on sharpening his collection of arrows. He arranges them in a neat row on his work table and proceeds to run the sharpening stone along the tip of the first arrow in the line.

He glances up at the other two every couple of minutes, and they’re both deep in conversation that they don’t pay him any mind. He notices that Felicity talks with her hands, fingers flaring and waving animatedly as she talks. She’s dwarfed by Diggle’s size but she doesn’t seem to mind, not an ounce of fear in her body language.

Her hair tumbles in long, curly waves down her shoulders, slowly drying from the rain. She looks so out of place in the Foundry but also really refreshing. It’s usually all surly grunts and moody growling when he and Diggle are down here, but tonight she’s brings smiles and light, and oh wow.

His partner’s broad back is shaking and he hears the low rumble of Diggle chuckling at something Felicity’s saying. He scowls at their interaction from afar. Enough is enough.

“You two done gossiping over there?” he calls out, putting down the arrow and walking towards them. “Because I’d like to know where we stand in all of this.”

Diggle turns and casts a sidelong glance at Felicity before shrugging. “We’re good.”

Oliver tilts his head at them. Cocks an eyebrow in disbelief. “You were ready to knock me out when you saw her in here before, and now you’re good? Just like that?”

“Yes.” They respond simultaneously, sharing a smirk. Diggle pats him on his shoulder. “Felicity explained that you did not in fact, kidnap her, and that she came here voluntarily, so yes, we’re good, Oliver.”

“Ah,” Oliver scratches the back of his neck. He feels like something has shifted between them - all three of them, actually - and he’s not sure how to handle it. Felicity and Diggle form a clear united front and he’s standing on the outside looking in. He doesn’t like it. “Right. Okay. Well, let’s talk then.”

He walks back to the computer in the middle of the room and sinks down in the chair. He arranges his fingers to form a pyramid in front of him as he organises his thoughts. “Did she tell you how she hacked us tonight? Spied on us using that USB thing she gave us?” he asks Diggle.

Diggle nods as Felicity rolls her eyes. They both follow him to the computers and as Felicity leans against the edge of the desk, Diggle pulls up a second chair to sit next to Oliver.

“I wasn’t spying,” she insists. Then pauses and shakes her head. “Okay, kind of? I didn’t _intend_ to spy on you, I just made it so I could if I wanted to. And good thing too, because you so needed my help tonight.”

“That’s besides the point. We -,” Oliver corrects himself when Diggle squints at him. “ _I_ used your tech trusting you in good faith, and while I can concede that your help was invaluable tonight, spying on us wasn’t part of the plan.”  

Felicity sighs. “I’m a  _hacker_ ,” she says after a beat of silence. “It’s what I do.”

“Doesn’t say you’re a hacker in your personnel file when I looked into you,” Oliver retorts.

Felicity scoffs. “Right, and does  _your_ resume list ‘ _Being the Hood_ ’ under ‘Other hobbies and Interests’?”

“You’re assuming he has a resume,” Diggle cuts in with an arched eyebrow, eliciting a tinkle of laughter from the blonde. “Because I promise you, he doesn’t,” he adds.

Oliver sends them both a scathing look, then attempts to bring them both back to the point of the conversation. “How do we know you haven’t hidden anything else in your hack that can lead the S.C.P.D. to us?”

“Seriously?” Felicity groans, but at his pointed look, she sighs. “Okay, _okay,_ maybe writing the backdoor into the hack doesn’t make me a beacon of virtue, but you two  _lied_ to me for weeks. Oliver, you _broke into my apartment!_ Nobody in this room is blameless. I hacked you, you lied to me, can't we just call it even and move on?”

“For the record, I was not part of the breaking into your apartment thing. He didn’t tell me about it until you brought it up in the parking garage,” Diggle chimes in. “But I’ll cop it for lying to you. That’s on me, and I’m sorry, Felicity.”

Then they both turn to him, twin expectant looks on their faces. Felicity toys with the hem of the boxer shorts he loaned to her, lips upturned in a hopeful smile. Diggle’s expression is less decipherable, but Oliver has a nagging feeling he’s expected to apologise to her too.

“What Diggle and I do,” he begins, choosing his words carefully. “Is very dangerous. For everyone involved. I had to take precautions, and if that meant telling a few lies here and there, then that’s the price I’m willing to pay. I’m not sorry about how I handled it. I couldn’t let you be a part of any of this.”

“You really are something else,” Felicity murmurs, studying him with renewed interest. Her feet dangle off the edge of the desk, swinging back and forth. “You’re kinda not the Oliver Queen I thought you were, and you also kind of are.”

He blinks at her in confusion. “Excuse me?”

Felicity adjusts her glasses, a finger pushing it up her nose as she frowns. “You think that everything is about you. About what you want, and what you need, but what about everyone else, Oliver? What about what I want?.”

She crosses her legs and purses her lips, holding up a finger to indicate she's not done yet. “I’m already part of this - whatever _this_ is, so you might as well accept it and decide what you’re going to do about it. Because I’m not going to just go away and forget about the Hood, just because you want me to.”

Oliver runs his hand down his face and sighs for what he thinks is the hundredth time that night. He leans back in his chair, closes his eyes and reopens them. “So what exactly is it that you think we should do?”

“Make me be part of the team. Tell me everything,” she says like she’s had the answer prepared. She’s bright eyed and eager, excitement glinting in her eyes. “I want to help you. Let me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Diggle tells her and Oliver agrees with him. Diggle holds up both his hands, palms facing outwards as Felicity shoots him a stern glare. “Not that I don’t trust you, but this is more than you providing I.T. support, Felicity. We’re... vigilantes. People get killed. It’s not an ideal life that we live.”

“I’m not five, Diggle. I understand. But you’re out there every night, doing whatever it is you’re doing, completely on your own. No backup, no support. I can be your support and I was great support tonight, and that was just me with a tablet and a phone. Besides,” Felicity pauses and sly smile spreads across her face. “It would be _soo_ much easier for you big, strong men to protect me if I‘m here. With you. All the time.”

Diggle just stares at her and Oliver considers her words. She has proven that she’s a formidable force behind a computer, and she’s right. Having her close would be more convenient if she ever got caught in the middle of anything. He shares a look with Diggle and they come to an unspoken agreement.

Oliver exhales, hoping he isn't making a mistake. “Okay, fine. Have it your way, Felicity.”

“Oh my God, you guys are so easy,” Felicity huffs, but her eyes are shining with delight. “Girl mentions she needs protecting and suddenly everyone’s on board.”   

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Diggle surmises. “It would be easier to keep an eye on you, and we could use someone down here while we’re out there on the streets. The fact that you actually know what you’re doing is a plus. Welcome to the team, Felicity.”  

Felicity crows with glee, pumping both of her fists in the air. “I’m rarely wrong,” she says around a triumphant grin. “It’s okay, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Her jubilance is infectious and despite the late hour and his failed mission tonight, Oliver finds himself chuckling at her antics. A comforting warmth settles in his heart as he watches both Diggle and Felicity share a smile.

He wonders if he’s doing the right thing, bringing someone like Felicity into the fold. Someone who hasn’t been tainted by the horrors of war and torture like he and Diggle have been. But he’s already experienced first hand how determined she can be, and he feels like even if he’d said no, she’d find her way back in.

And he doesn’t want to admit it, but he knows he’s also being selfish. He’s intrigued by her, drawn to her smile and her light. He wants the whole story behind the tiny genius hacker who’s so hell bent on helping him despite not even knowing _what_ she’s helping him with.

He just wants to know her.

Oliver stands up and holds his hand out to her. Felicity takes it and she surprises him with how firm her grip is. His eyes meet hers as they shake their hands, once, like they’re closing a business deal. He smiles.  

“Just so you know, I’m putting you on probation,” he tells her, teasing.

Her hand slips out of his and a part of him mourns the loss of contact.  

She shrugs. “As long as that doesn’t stop me from upgrading your seriously outdated system here, I don’t care.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slightly shorter and very dialogue heavy chapter, but it was the right place to stop before... what comes next. ;)
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	7. Toil and Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Field trip!

Felicity shuffles into work bleary eyed and sleepy, exhaustion having settled deep in her bones. She barely gives her cubicle mate a second glance as she slides into her chair, dumping her bag on the ground. 

She’s been spending a lot of time over the last week hanging out in the Hood’s lair (it is  _so_ a lair, she’s not going to be convinced otherwise despite how many times Oliver insists it’s  _not_ in his growly voice) and it’s completely thrown off her sleep schedule. But since he's given her free reign to do whatever she wants to the lair technology wise, she is absolutely not complaining. Much. 

The day after he officially welcomed her to his team, she got rid of his dumb, not so secure security system. Once she’d fixed that, (hello, biometric scanners!) she took his embarrassing, decades old computers apart and started rebuilding everything from scratch. Money, predictably, wasn’t a problem for Oliver, billionaire and all, so he’d signed off on everything without question.

Most nights Diggle stayed by her side in the gloomy basement while she worked, helping with whatever he could, lugging around the bigger, heavier pieces of equipment she decided they absolutely had to have. He was sweet about it, never once complaining about the heavy lifting, or that he’d basically been benched from vigilante duties while she got their system up and running.

She had a sneaking suspicion that he was there to keep an eye on her while Oliver went out prowling the streets and even though she was slightly miffed that they thought she needed the constant supervision, she understood where they were coming from. Besides, Diggle did seem like he was genuinely curious about her upgrades so she was happy to have him around, explaining things to him as she went along.

Oliver on the other hand, didn’t seem to be too interested in the tech but was content to just lurk around watching her work. She knew most of what she was doing with the computers went over his head; he’s more of a ‘ _just tell me what button to press_ ’ kind of guy so she didn’t mind his silent lurking too much.

What she  _did_ mind though, is that he lurked _shirtless_.

_All the time._

Like the night she discovered what a salmon ladder was. Even just thinking about it now, half asleep in her cubicle, brings a blush to her face.

She’d come downstairs after a particularly brutal day at work and almost tripped over her own feet when she spotted him hanging off the bar mid-pull up, in all his half-naked glory, sweat-slicked muscles glinting beneath the fluorescent lights.

She remembers being completely speechless at the time, marveling at every movement that rippled through his body as he swung up, rung by rung, and then _back down_ the damn ladder like some sort of _very_ well-oiled machine.  

“What was... _that?_ ” she choked when he landed back on solid ground, her brain still trying to process the exemplary display of athleticism she’d just witnessed.

Oliver had smirked at her and shrugged. “It’s called a salmon ladder. Works the upper body.”

“Yeah. It works your body alright,” she’d mumbled, drinking in every sinewy, solid muscle before her. His abs - dear God, _his abs_ \- looked like they’re made out of marble and seriously, she couldn’t believe she’d _touched_ that. Touched _him_. That first night he brought her to his lair when she’d dragged her finger down his abs, unable to control herself, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. What a gift.

When she finally looked back up at his face, he was wearing a smug, knowing grin she’d snapped her back to reality. She’d practically ran to her workstation to avoid embarrassing herself any further but for the rest of that evening (and the following nights), he’d tortured her by working out right in front of the computer, pretending he didn’t notice how much he was distracting her.

Smug bastard.

That little incident had been a little so many days ago now and she had hoped that the prolonged exposure to his constant shirtlessness would somehow render her immune to his attractiveness but she’d had no such luck.

Because here she is, slumped at her desk, still thinking about his stupid, amazing abs.

She moans into her now lukewarm cup of coffee, willing herself to focus on her real, full-time, salary paying job. She’s not going to be able to get the Louboutins she’s had her eye on for months moonlighting as a vigilante.

Wait, no. She’s _not_ a vigilante - hm. She pauses mid-thought. Assistant to vigilantes? That sounds dumb. Sidekick? No.

Tech support? Maybe.

Her lips twist in amusement as she considers it. ‘Good morning, Felicity Smoak, Tech Support for the Hood speaking!’ She laughs at herself. The sleep deprivation is driving her insane, obviously. Ugh. She powers on her computer with renewed resolve. Time to get her head in the game. Her monitor blinks to life and she stretches her fingers, cracking them as she prepares to tackle the the first ticket in her queue.

Not even five minutes later, someone clears their throat loudly, startling her from her work. _Seriously?_

“Hey, Felicity.”

She’s ready to berate whoever it is who so rudely interrupted her but the words die on her lips when she looks up from her screen and realises who her visitor is.

It’s Oliver. Not the Hood-Oliver she’s used to, but perfectly groomed Oliver Queen playboy millionnaire, sans grease around his eyes, mostly clean shaven, filling out his tailored suit very well. She licks her lips, back to thinking about his stupid abs. And then remembers where she is and blushes furiously.

“Hi, Ol- Mr. Queen. Hi. Hey,” she winces at the teasing glint in his eye. Then swallows. Breathes. Counts down from three. “Hi. How can I help you today?”

He steps inside her cubicle, then casually leans against the partition separating her from her cubicle mate, crossing his ankles like he’s relaxing at a goddamn wine bar instead of her professional work space.

“I don’t think I’ve ever come down here before. I like the space,” Oliver says, giving her cubicle a quick once over.

Professional, Felicity repeats to herself. She can totally be professional with him. All she has to do is just forget that she’s seen him shirtless, sweaty, dirty, grimy, dressed in leather...  

“Well, Mr. Queen, always happy for you to go down on - _no!_ ,” Felicity slaps a hand over her mouth. What the actual  _fuck_ is wrong with her? “I mean, happy for you to come - _down_! Come down here - oh God, why am I still talking?”  

Oliver laughs - he actually  _laughs_ at her. Has she seen him laugh before? She doesn’t think so. He’s usually more reserved, brooding, grumpy, beating things up in the lair. But here he is, chuckling as he shakes his head at her.

So much for being professional. God help her. She chews on the end of her pen, frowning. “Glad you find me amusing, not going to be as funny when Human Resources fires me for sexual harassment.”

Oliver rolls his eyes at her dramatics but he stops laughing. “You’re fine, Felicity. Besides, that’s my last name on this building. I won’t let them fire you. I promise.”

Her eyes fly up to his in surprise. Sure, they’ve been spending more time together recently, but she didn’t think that they were close enough that it warranted the conviction and sincerity in his words. Her pen slips out from between her lips and she worries her teeth along her bottom lip. A strange silence blankets them like they both realise some imaginary line has shifted in the sand of their unorthodox relationship.  

“So anyway,” Oliver clears his throat, dissipating the weird vibe in the air. He shuffles a little closer to her desk and she doesn’t miss the way he casts a furtive glance around. “I’m here because I need your help.”

She purses her lips, tilts her head at him and crosses her arms. “Nuh-uh. Just because you made the effort to personally visit me, which is nice, by the way, don’t get me wrong, doesn’t mean you get to jump ahead of all the other support requests that other people have made using the right procedures and -”

“It’s more of a _personal_ kind of help that I need,” Oliver cuts her off with pointed look. Then adds, “For my other work. At night.”

Felicity rolls her chair back, eyes wide open, waving her hands frantically for him to shut up. Does he not care at all that he’s in public? There’s someone in the cubicle right next to hers for Christ’s sake.

She pulls a stool out from under her desk and motions for him to sit down. 

“Do you mean,” her voice drops to a whisper even as her heart rate picks up. Excitement slowly seeps into her bloodstream. “ _Help_ , help? You’re lifting the ban? You’re going to let me help you now, for real? Instead of you going out alone and me twiddling my thumbs in the lair -”

“Not a lair,” he responds automatically. “And I didn’t ban you, Felicity,” he says with an exasperated huff. “I just said that it would be best if you didn’t participate in... things... until you were one hundred percent sure you’ve set everything up the way you like it. But Diggle tells me you’ve run all the tests you need to? You’re all done?”

Felicity grins and gives him a thumbs up. “Uh huh, all systems go as of this morning!”

“Right, well... this is time sensitive, so it’ll have to be tonight. Can you come by after work?”

Her body tingles at his words, stomach swooping at the idea of being able to help him. Of him trusting her enough to want her to help him. All of a sudden her exhaustion is forgotten, replaced with simmering anticipation. “I’ll be there!” she promises.

Oliver nods, then after a beat stands up and straightens his suit. He sends her another smile. “I’ll see you later then,” he says before walking away.

Felicity watches his retreating back, allowing her gaze to drift down to his ass in appreciation before she sighs and turns back to her computer.

* * *

 

“ _These communication devices are a little smaller than what I’m used to. Can you hear me?_ ”

Felicity frowns at the question. “One, of course I can hear you, Oliver. I made these comms. They work perfectly. Two, if I couldn’t, then your question is pretty much pointless because I wouldn’t be able to answer anyway, and it’s like when people start a Skype call and just repeat ‘can you hear me’ over and over again expecting something to magically -”

“ _I think he gets the point, Felicity_ ,” Diggle interrupts her with a laugh. “ _You can hear us._ ”

“Clear as crystal,” she confirms. She watches as two green dots move on her screen, splitting up as they come to a fork in the hallway. “The new trackers I installed in your boots are working too, just in case you were wondering.”

“ _Just to make it clear, I wasn't._ I _never doubted you for a minute_.”

Her cheeks heat up at the vote of confidence. “Aw, thanks Dig. If you can share that sentiment with our big bad Hood, that would be great, because he seems to think that our comms -”

“ _You know, I would really appreciate it if you two would stop yammering in my ear._ ”

Felicity rolls her eyes. “So grumpy, Oliver. We’re just having a conversation, jeez. Dig, first door on your right should be the security room. Hold your position once you get there, please. Still running the program to get the door unlocked.”

He acknowledges her with a grunt and Felicity triggers the satellite uplink that will give her access to Kord Industries’ security system. She breaks through their software easily - how embarrassing for them, really - and types in the line of code that will give her full control of their surveillance system.  

A quick glance at her brand new second monitor gives her the boys’ positions - Diggle’s dot has stopped moving and Oliver’s still making his way to the server room. She’d disabled the C.C.T.V. cameras before they broke in, so all she has to go on are the trackers, and - she taps out a few quick commands - now, also Kord Industries’ infrared heat-signature sensors. Score for Felicity!

“I’ve got eyes on you,” she tells them when the greenish-black feed appears on her screen. Diggle glows red by the door she told him to wait at and Oliver... It takes her a few seconds to realise what she’s looking at. 

“Whoa, Oliver why are you upside down?”

“ _Safer this way_ ,” he says simply.

Felicity tilts her head at the live video feed. The red Oliver-shaped blob moves slowly across her screen and it dawns upon her that he’s actually clinging onto the pipes _in the ceiling_ as he makes his way to the server room. Like it’s perfectly normal for a grown man to be creeping along the ceiling pipes like a gross, disgusting bug.

“ _Did you just call me a bug?_ ”  

Felicity grimaces and slams her mouth shut. God _damn_ it! “I most certainly did not call you a bug. You’re hearing things.”

_“How can I be hearing things, Felicity? I thought you said your comms were working perfectly?”_

“Wow, jerk!” She scowls at the monitor as she hears Diggle chuckle at their exchange in the background. “Just for that, you can creepy-crawl your way to the server room by yourself. I’m helping Dig now. Shoo, fly,” she tells him.  

She shifts her attention to the other program running, cracking the code that will get Diggle into the security room. “Hey, I’ve almost got the numbers, you ready, Dig? There’s a twenty second window before the code changes and I’ll have to start over again.”

 _“Born ready,”_ Diggle replies.

"4-5-5-6-1-3-9,” she reads out aloud. She can hear Diggle keying the code in, and then the sound of the door sliding open.

_“Okay, I’m in. Just plugged the USB into the terminal, all you now. Making my way to rendezvous point two.”_

A window pops up on her screen and she whoops in delight. She starts overriding user permissions and access services, fingers on autopilot as she inserts line after line of code into their system.  

This - _this_ is what she lives for. It takes her back to her days at M.I.T. and while this is, okay, _way_ riskier and probably less ‘grey area’ than hacktivism, it still gives her the same thrill. The exhilaration courses through her veins, like some sort of magic elixir, lighting fire in her blood.

She watches as Oliver’s drops down from the ceiling, waiting for her to unlock the door to the server room, and a couple of seconds later, Diggle appears behind him. Go time. Right as she hits the final sequence of keys she needs, she spies a movement on the infrared feed.

She freezes.

"Oliver,” she hisses. Oh God, that’s a really big blob of red headed their way. “Oliver. Dig. You’re about to get company. A _lot_ of company. And I don't think it's the welcome party.”

 _"What do you mean company? Felicity, you said we had half an hour until they patrolled this floor,”_ Oliver growls in her ear.

“I - I... hang on.” She switches the feed over to where the men are, then checks her copy of their security records. Nothing. Nothing pops out at her to indicate why they’ve altered their route. 

Oh God, she didn’t prepare for this. This wasn’t part of the plan. The plan that's currently falling apart right at her fingertips. Literally. It's her first mission with the Hood, and she's already screwed up. 

“I don’t know, I’m sorry, they must have changed up the schedule at the last minute and not logged it in the system.” She pulls up blueprints for the rest of the building and starts scanning for alternative routes out. She can do this. She can fix this.

“ _How long do we have until they're on us_?” Diggle asks. “ _Can you get us into the server room until they clear out?_ ”

“No, there’s no time,” she bites her bottom lip, so anxious she thinks her heart is about to burst from her chest. “They’re just around the corner. You need to take the fire escape and get back onto the roof and leave. Get out. We can try this again another time.”

She plots out an escape route for them, breaking out in a cold sweat, eyes not leaving her screen.

“Guys. Guys, you’re not leaving. _Why aren’t you leaving_?” She’s sure they can hear the fear in her voice but she doesn’t care.

 _“Felicity, get the server room door open. We need this information tonight, we’re not leaving.”_ Oliver growls.

“Are you _crazy?_ They’re gonna see you!” 

“ _Not if you work fast._   _Get. The door. Open._ ” Oliver orders, leaving absolutely no room for misinterpretation.

With trembling fingers and an eye on the hostiles, she starts disabling the electronic lock on the server room door. Thanks to the USB Diggle planted earlier, she makes quick work of the lock and within seconds she's through. 

“Go. Go in. Door’s unlocked,” she manages to choke out between shallow breaths. Maybe they can still salvage this mission, maybe she hasn't completely messed - 

But then she hears _gunfire_. Loud, rapid, gunfire. “Oliver!” she gasps. “Diggle!”

She scrambles up from her seat, her chair rolling backwards. The infrared video feed doesn’t provide much in terms of visuals now that all the red figures are lumped together, so against every instinct in her body, she re-enables the C.C.T.V. cameras in the hallway.

“Oh my god,” she whispers.

The fight unfolds like a movie before her, and she hears every sickening crunch and grunt in startling clarity thanks to the comms. Her stomach churns at the violence, but she can't take her eyes off her screen.

Oliver’s leaping and kicking his way through the men who have descended upon them. He’s moving so fast she can barely keep up with him, disarming the men in a flurry of kicks and punches, slamming them against the walls when they get too close. He lets a couple of arrows loose, sending one man to the ground then slams his bow into the back of another, disabling him.

Diggle’s takes advantage of the other men being preoccupied with Oliver and manages to slip inside the server room, relatively unhurt.

“ _Tell me what to do_ ,” Diggle asks her once he's inside, but his demand doesn't quite register with her. She's busy pulling up the S.C.P.D.'s network, trying to monitor it just in case they get alerted by the break in and then they'll have an even bigger problem in their hands.

“ _Felicity, a little help here!_ ” Diggle asks again, with less patience this time, and she turns back to the Kord Industries feed, making a mental note that she’s definitely going to need to work on the whole multitasking thing the next time they do this - if they even let her do this again.

“The hard drive I gave you, you need to connect it to the main array. Big tower thing. It’ll look different from the other servers,” she instructs Diggle.

She’s still standing up, too wired to look where her chair has rolled off to. Her entire body is thrumming with adrenaline, fear, and she doesn’t even know what else, but it might be possible, as absurd as it sounds, that a part of her  _likes_ it. Maybe. She'll have to analyse that again later when she's not on the verge of a complete panic attack. 

Tracking Diggle over the C.C.T.V. video, she watches as he makes his way through the maze of servers until she spots what they’re looking for.

“That one!” she exclaims. “Straight ahead, there should be a port for you to plug the drive in. The program will run and upload everything we need to the cloud automatically.”

She glances at her other screen and to her relief, Oliver’s still holding his own against the other men. Two of them are pinned to the ground with his arrows and two more lie unconscious, slumped against the wall. He dispatches the last man with a swift elbow to the face, wrenching his gun away and throwing it across the hall.

“ _How are we doing?”_ Oliver asks, just as her computer pings to signal the successful upload of the data they needed.

“Got everything we need,” she responds a little breathlessly. It’s all so surreal. She’s... she’s actually doing this with the Hood, _working_ with him and she really can’t believe that this is how she’s spending her Saturday night, wow, she would not have -

“ _Felicity_.”

“Ah, babbling. Not the time. Yes, we’re good. Ignore everything I just said. One escape route coming up. Oh no...” Her heart sinks when a bright red alert box pops up on the screen. 

" _I don't like the sound of that oh no_ ," Diggle mutters. 

“Uh. Bad news,” she moans. “I think those guys you just took out called for backup.”

“ _Damn it_!”  

Felicity knows that the fury she detects in Oliver's voice isn't directed at her, but it still cuts deep, doubling down on the guilt that she 's already swimming in. She doesn't give herself the chance to wallow in it, and instead focuses everything she has on getting her boys out. She can do this. 

“We’re still okay,” she reassures them, hoping they don’t see right through her false bravado. “The fire escape is still a viable way out. You just need to hustle because they’re coming for you, and fast. I’m trying to create a distraction to slow them down. I can slow them down, lock a few doors maybe...”

“ _Oliver, that's not a good idea, man."_

Felicity’s busy keeping an eye on the group that’s approaching so she hasn’t been paying much attention to Oliver and Diggle, but at his warning, she turns to her other screen.

“What are you doing, Oliver?” she demands when she spots them. “Why are you aiming an arrow at the servers?”

“ _You said we needed a distraction. I’m creating one._ ”

“What are you talkin-” Before she gets to finish, a deafening boom explodes around her and she flinches in shock. A raging fire engulfs her entire screen, and then the video feed winks out into blackness, leaving her blind.

Her entire body seizes up. Her knuckles turn white from how tightly she’s clenching her fists. She can’t think. Can’t move. Her heart feels like it’s about to give out. The panic that she's been trying to keep at bay all night threatens to overwhelms her. 

“Oliver! Diggle! Guys?!!”

Nothing. There’s nothing but eerie silence coming through the comms. The C.C.T.V. cameras are blown, infrared heat sensors completely useless now that everything is on fire. She can’t locate their trackers - whatever Oliver blew up must have emitted an electromagnetic pulse, short circuiting all the electronics in the vicinity.

Why had he done that? She had it under control, she could have got them out of there without all the destruction. Who knows how many people were caught in the explosion? How many _innocent_ people? Add that to the fact that they're both not responding and missing, and she doesn't know what to do with herself -  

She gulps. Okay. She can’t lose it now. She needs to... needs to keep her wits about her. Oliver and Diggle are vigilantes. They do this all the time, she’s sure they’re fine. They have to be. They’re good at what they do. They'll come back, they have to. She refuses to accept anything else. Felicity Smoak did _not_ send the Hood and his partner to their deaths tonight. 

She spins around and grabs her chair, sinking into it unsteadily. She exhales. Shuts her eyes and counts back down from ten. Forces herself to stay calm. There are things she has to do. For them. Hacker stuff.

Like getting rid of every single sign of their break in. Wipe all traces of her hack. She can start with that. Then... she’ll think about ‘then’ later.

She’s in the middle of accessing Kord Industries’ offshore backups when a burst of static nearly deafens her.

" _Felicity, you there?_ ” It’s Diggle.

She’s so surprised she almost falls out of her chair. Wave after wave of relief crashes over her and she lets her head hit the desk, feeling the tension leaving her body. “Oh. My. God.”

“ _We’re okay_ ,” Diggle answers her unasked question. “ _On our way back_.”

* * *

 

The moment she hears the door to the lair slide open, she’s out of her chair, bounding up the stairs to greet them. The two men enter noisily, Diggle walking through first as Oliver follows closely behind, keying in the code to lock them in. They smell like sweat and smoke, covered in soot and blood but she doesn’t care. 

She pulls Diggle into a hug the moment he’s within reach, stretching up on her toes so she can wrap her arms around his shoulders. “So glad you’re okay,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “I was so scared. Thought I failed you.”

Diggle chuckles into her hair, a large hand cupping the back of her head to pull her closer. "We're good, Felicity. _You_ did good tonight."

Hah, she did not 'do good' tonight, that's for sure, but his embrace is comforting and she sighs. They’re here. They’re alive. She has physical proof that she  _didn’t_ in fact lead them to their deaths and that's all that matters for now. She untangles herself from Diggle, steps back and stares at him. "You're really okay?"

“We’re fine, Felicity.” Oliver says gruffly. She turns to him then, giving him a careful once over. 

His hood's pulled back and he's wiped the grease off his face. He’s sporting a nasty still-bleeding cut under his eye, and he’s favouring his left side as he stands. There’s a tear in his right pant leg, a giant hole that’s caked with blood along his calf. She can’t tell how serious it is, but he’s practically putting all his weight on his other leg, so it must be bad. 

"Can I...?" she asks quietly, stepping closer as she wiggles her fingers in front of Oliver's face.

He doesn't answer her verbally, but when he nods, she reaches her fingers up to his face, gently brushing over the cut. She scrapes her nails through the shadow of the beard that’s started to grow along his jaw and Oliver leans imperceptibly into her touch, a movement so tiny she’s not sure if he even realises he’s doing it.

“You’re gonna need stitches,” she murmurs, not wanting to end whatever this weird moment it is they’re having."Looks deep."

“I’ll be fine,” he reiterates. He's holding himself very still, eyes closed, fists clenched by his sides, chest heaving as he clearly breathes through the pain. She just shakes her head in disbelief at his stubbornness.

“Don’t be silly, your leg doesn’t look fine,” she tells him, nodding at the gash down his calf. “You have to get that cleaned up. I got us a whole First Aid station down there and Diggle can -”

“Felicity, I said it’s  _fine_ ,” he snaps and peels her fingers off his face. She jerks backwards, astonished at the change in his mood, their moment clearly over. He pinches his brow, grunts, and muscles his way past her, limping down the stairs without another word.

He’s seriously going to give her emotional whiplash the way he conducts himself around her. How he can be totally charming and joking one minute, and then a brooding, grumpy asshole in the next, she’ll never know, but frankly, she’s getting really sick of it.

 She follows him down the stairs, glaring at his back. “Excuse me? Don’t walk away from me, mister. I’m just making sure you -”

He whirls around to face her and there’s a dangerous glint in his eye. “You don’t need to make sure anything, Felicity. I told you I’m fine. Did you get what we needed? The data to implicate -”

Wow. How dare he? Her nerves are so, _so_ frayed, she’s hours overdue for a breakdown, barely keeping herself together. All she wants to do is make sure everyone's okay, and he’s just going to stand there, growl at her and ask for  _data_?

“Are you _kidding_ , Oliver? This is what you want to talk about right now? You just _blew up_ an entire floor in Kord Industries! _You blew it up_! Everything exploded, people died! You got hurt! That wasn’t the _plan_. The plan was to get in - ”

“The plan, _Felicity_ ,” he interrupts her, saying her name like it’s a curse. “Sometimes doesn’t work out the way we want it to. We tried it your way, it went sideways, so I had to take matters into my own hands. These things  _happen_.”

He pulls his quiver and his bow off his back, dumping them unceremoniously on her desk and unzips his jacket like that’s the end of the conversation. No fucking way.  

Felicity clenches her jaw. “You didn’t have to blow the servers up. You could have let me -”

“What, Felicity?” He growls, marching up to her, grimacing as he aggravates the wound in his leg. “Let you what? We had to get out of there, I got us out of there. _Alive_. Why do you have such a problem with this?”

She’s glad she refitted the lair with soundproofing panels because she doesn’t think her loud voice has ever been this loud before. The combination of fear and anxiety that she's been holding back all night takes over and she’s trembling with it, fury bubbling under her skin. “Because you asked for my help and you _didn’t let me help you_! I had things under control, if you'd just trusted me to do my job, we would have been fine! You freaked out at the first thing that went wrong and people died tonight, Oliver!”

Oliver takes her outburst in his stride and takes another step forward, towering over her like he thinks that scares her. “People who, by the way, wanted to kill me, in case you’ve forgotten! And Diggle!”

“Hey man, don’t drag me into this,” she hears Diggle mutter from somewhere behind them. They both ignore him.

“That doesn’t mean they deserved to be blown up!” she seethes. “I could have found a way. We should have discussed it _as a team_. Which I thought we were. I could have -”

He cuts her off. “Diggle and I have been doing this far longer than you have, Felicity. We know what we’re doing. _We’re_ the ones out there, in the direct line of fire, and sometimes we have to make split second decisions that we don’t have time to run by some _tech nerd_ sitting in front of her computers!”

Felicity stumbles back like he’s just punched her. Her eyes start to burn with unshed tears and it feels like invisible hands are clawing at her chest. She sucks in a shaky breath.

Wow. That hurt. That _really_ hurt. They’re not close, sure, but still, she thought he saw her as more than that. More than the nerdy girl who was good with computers.

Clearly she’d been wrong.

Maybe... her blood chills at the realisation that maybe she’s in way over her head. She’d been seduced by the idea of being able to help, by the possibility of contributing to the greater good somehow and so charmed by _Oliver fucking Queen_ , that she hadn’t thought about whether the Hood shared her same ideals. Because it's clear now that he doesn't. It was never about the greater good for him. 

All he wants to do is cross names off that dumb list of his, regardless of the consequences.

She’d been so naive.

_Some tech nerd._

Yeah.

“Okay, Oliver,” she whispers as she turns away, unable to look at Oliver for another second. "Okay, then." 

She’s finding it very hard to keep her composure, shaking with the culmination of the emotional roller-coaster ride she’s been on all night. She walks towards the computers she’d so lovingly built and sighs. “Guess I can’t say I didn’t know what I was signing up for.”

“Felicity, I didn’t mea -” Oliver starts saying with what she thinks might be a hint of an apology in his words, but she doesn't let him finish. Won't let his words drag her back in.

“No, Oliver. I don’t want to argue anymore. You win. My fault for thinking that we were a real team, working together towards a common goal. My fault for being worried sick out of my mind thinking that I led you and Dig to your deaths, worried about _you_. I should have known you’d be fine since you’ve been doing this for so much longer than I have, right? I'm just your average tech nerd who doesn’t know any better. You’re the expert on all things vigilantism, not me. My bad.”

She picks up her bag from the floor, slings it over her shoulders as she shoves her phone, keys and tablet into it. Oliver makes a noise like he's trying to speak again, but Diggle appears in front of her and shoots him a glare that shuts him up immediately.

Felicity dismisses Diggle's look of concern, squeezing his forearm in reassurance. 

“I’m okay, Dig. I’m just tired and emotionally spent and I’m going to go home. The information form the data dump you uploaded is on the desktop. Do whatever you want with it.”

She thinks she hears a faint _‘Felicity, wait,’_ as she walks up the stairs to leave the lair but she ignores it. Her final act of defiance for the night. Take that, stupid Hood.

When she finally steps outside into the night, she inhales deeply, appreciating the burst of fresh air that fills her lungs. It feels like she’s been cooped in the lair for what seems like forever, but it’s only just after midnight and compared to her other nights, it’s actually early.

Her heart feels heavy with uncertainty, not exactly sure how something she’d been so excited for this morning has ended up being so unbelievably messy. She’d felt so very in her element before, guiding them through the building, hacking firewalls, infiltrating their network. She was _good_ at it. She _felt_ good.

But maybe she just wasn’t good _for them_.

She unlocks her car door with a sigh. Maybe a decent night’s sleep will help put things in perspective. Maybe she’ll wake up the next morning and she'll try to have a normal, non-shouty, non-adrenaline and testosterone laden conversation with Oliver to sort out their issues. 

And then something hard smashes into the back of her head and her entire world winks into darkness. 

* * *

 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. Yell at me on Twitter: @estheryam
> 
> Or sing me praises, I like those too :)


	8. Basements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introspection and violence go well together. Maybe. I don't know.

Oliver hovers over Diggle's shoulder, unable to make sense of what he's doing on the computer screen. He purses his lips, swallows his pride and just asks Diggle. “Did she get everything we need?”

“I don’t know, what do you think, Oliver?”

Oliver’s head snaps up at the unexpected venom in Diggle’s voice. “Hey, what -”

Diggle cuts him off by shaking his head as he turns back to the computer screen. “Nevermind. Yes, Felicity got everything. I’m transferring the files to the S.C.P.D. now. They’ll get your guy before he skips town and you can cross another name off that damn list.”

Oliver’s stares at Diggle’s back, confused by his friend’s demeanor. Okay, yes, it’s a little tense between them, but they’re always on the edge after tough missions and near misses, so he chalks it up to that.

Felicity storming out on them hadn’t made things any easier either, but as far as he knows, _Diggle_ didn’t have issues with him so his snide remarks are coming out of left field and it’s a little off-putting.

He watches in silence as Diggle navigates through the programs Felicity has set up for them with ease. Something that feels suspiciously like jealousy flares up within him when it occurs to him that Diggle must have spent more time with Felicity that he thought for him to be so well versed with her software.

But, Oliver rationalises, there’s no reason for him to be jealous so that can’t _possibly_ be what he’s feeling.

“All done,” Diggle announces, spurring him out of his thoughts. Diggle gets out of the desk chair and turns around to face him. He leans his hip against the edge of the desk and folds his arms, glaring pointedly at Oliver. “Now you’re going to tell me what the hell your problem is.”

“I don’t have a problem with anything, Diggle,” Oliver replies with a frustrated sigh. There’s obviously something else going on here, some big _thing_ that has slipped through the cracks of his awareness causing the undercurrent of tension between them.

Diggle frowns. “Are you serious, man?”

Oliver meets the other man’s gaze and while a part of him already expects it, he’s still taken aback by what he sees. Diggle’s lips are stretched in a thin line, eyes narrowed dangerously at him. If looks could kill, Oliver would be six feet under and rotting in his grave.

“If this is about what I said to Felicity about being a _nerd_ , I didn’t mean it, it just came out. I’ll clear it up with her later,” he says, eventually caving under Diggle’s intense stare. He offers Diggle a smile, trying to alleviate the mood. “When she calms down a little. She’s scary when all she’s riled up.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Although you deserve to be skinned alive for that too.”

Oliver blinks dumbly at Diggle. He runs through the sequence of events that transpired that night but he can’t think of anything else that Diggle could possibly be upset over. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Diggle scrutinises him, like he’s trying to see if Oliver’s lying. After a moment, he presses the heel of his palm into his eyes in exasperation. “You, Oliver Queen,” Diggle sighs. “Are a special kind of idiot, you know that?”

“Hey,” he protests, but falls silent when Diggle holds up a hand.

“I can’t believe I have to spell it out for you. You  _tore_ into Felicity the moment you got back, when all she wanted to do was check if you were okay.”

"Yeah, I told her I was fine, she wouldn't listen!” Oliver cuts him off brusquely. He didn’t need her fussing over him like a mother hen, especially when they had more important things to be doing at the time. Like getting the evidence to the S.C.P.D. Surely that isn't what Diggle's upset at him about? 

“In her defense, that leg of yours doesn’t look too great.”

“I still don’t see how that’s anyone else’s problem but mine,” Oliver insists. But yeah, damn his leg is stinging and he’s not sure if his island herbs will be enough to do the trick this time. He walks over to where Felicity has set up what she’d called the First Aid station and pulls open one of the drawers. He rummages through it, mildly surprised to find it very well stocked.  

Diggle makes a noise that sounds like a dangerous growl and it makes Oliver leave the First Aid station to go back to face him. "What?"

“How are you still not getting this? This isn’t just about your damn leg, Oliver. This is about everything else!”

“What the hell are you -”

“Oliver!” Diggle’s clearly had it with him, his voice booming through the Foundry. Oliver winces at the volume and braces himself.

“That girl spent hours here every night over the last week setting everything up - and I mean _everything_ \- without a single complaint. Do you know how long it took for her to make those comm devices we used tonight? And the trackers?” Diggle points to the pile of electronics on the desk, most of which looks like junk to him, but Felicity probably sees them as buried treasure.

“Do you know that she drove around the city for hours by herself just to test how far the wireless range extends to? That she's hacked into every local and federal database she can get her hands on? You know why she did all that? Because _you_ told her she was part of the team. _This_ team. And she was damn proud of it.”

Diggle doesn’t allow him to let any of it to sink in before he rips into Oliver again.

“And tonight, all you had to do was trust her to get us out of there, but you didn’t even give her a chance to. Then you demean her _and_ her contributions to this team when she was brave enough to confront you about it! Damn it, Oliver!” Diggle slams an open palm against the desk to emphasise his point.

Oliver stumbles into Felicity’s chair - hers, because she’d picked out for herself, trembling with excitement as she rattled on about how much more comfortable it would be, and the customisable settings available for smaller people like her. He hadn’t understood why his existing chair wasn’t good enough for her, but she merely sighed and rolled his eyes at him when he asked.

Now that he’s sitting in it, he has to admit that maybe she’d been right. About the chair.

Maybe about how she could have gotten them out of Kord Industries tonight too.

He ruminates for a moment, head in his hands, the startling truth in Diggle's words weighing heavily on his shoulders. 

Then the guilt starts spreading through him like wildfire.

Back at Kord Industries, with adrenaline coursing through his veins, not accustomed to having an extra member on his team, and that extra member babbling in his year, telling him what to do, he’d felt so out of his element that he’d refused to listen to her.

Then he’d let his temper get the better of him and he took out his frustration at letting himself get injured out on her. Unfairly.

He’s an _ass_.

“Yeah, damn right you are,” Diggle grunts, and Oliver realises he’s been muttering out loud to himself. "And Felicity doesn't deserve it." 

"I know."

He keeps thinking about the look on Felicity’s face as she walked out on them, right after he’d called her ‘some tech nerd’. The complete and utter disappointment. Betrayal. Sadness - they'll all be imprinted in his mind’s eye forever. 

God _damn_ it.

“What do I do?” he asks Diggle in a rare moment of vulnerability knowing that he won’t see him as a lesser man for asking for help. In fact, it’s probably going to earn some points in his favour.

“Well,” Diggle starts as he pulls up another chair and coming around to sit opposite him. “Before you do anything else, you have to think really hard about her place with us. Because unless you’re prepared to really let her in and be part of this, you should leave her the hell alone. It’s not fair to her otherwise. I know we said we were going to protect her, and that this is the best way, but we can still protect her even if she doesn’t work with us.”

Oliver blinks at Diggle. Lets his words really settle in his mind.  

He’s only known Felicity for a short while, but in that time, she’s managed to burrow under his skin and carve out a nice Felicity shaped space in his heart for herself. And he wants to know her better, he’s desperate for it, but the part of him that’s been twisted and mangled by his time on Lian Yu prevents him from embracing her and everything she represents. As a result, he’s been very careful about not letting anyone see how much she affects him, opting to stay quiet whenever he’s around her. He distanced himself from her, not wanting to taint her with his darkness.

But what Diggle had said earlier, about him demeaning her and her contributions struck a nerve in him. Because that’s not what he’d intended, at all.

In fact, he’s constantly in a state of awe when it comes to her. Amazed at her intelligence, at how she doesn’t let the ugliness of his vigilantism dim her light, at the bright spark of life that she brings to his otherwise dark, depressing existence. He’s inexplicably drawn to her cheerful personality, her sharp wit, the way she always has a smile on her face even when she’s stuck with brooding vigilantes in a cold, dreary basement.

So, does he really want Felicity on his team?

Does he want to entangle her life with his more than he already has? Does he really want her chattering in his ear every time he’s out on the streets, taking down criminals and whatever else his father’s list leads him to? Does he want her down in the Foundry all the time, with her calming presence keeping him company as he sharpens his arrows and works out?

_Yes._

God, _yes._

“Dig... I,” Oliver struggles to find the right words to say. He’s never been great at expressing himself verbally, more so after Lian Yu, and it’s no different now. How does he even begin explaining the fact that this woman he barely knows has managed to turn both Oliver Queen’s and the Hood’s entire world on its axis?

Eventually, he goes for the easier, less complicated answer. He tilts his chin at the computers, and then gestures to the area around him. “We need her for all of this.”

Diggle scoffs at his obvious cop out, but accepts it nonetheless. “Then you have to tell her you’re sorry and see if that’s enough to make her come back.”  

* * *

  
When Felicity wakes up, it’s not to the usual bitter aroma of coffee from the coffee maker that she’s set the timer for. It’s not to the sliver of light that peeks in from between her curtains because she doesn’t like sleeping in complete darkness. And she definitely does not wake up under her very comfortable blankets.

Instead, she wakes up cold and disoriented, sitting instead of lying down, her back hurting from something poking her right between her shoulder blades. Her knees are bent at her chest, ankles zip-tied, shoes missing. Her blurred vision means her glasses are also, unfortunately gone.

Her head is throbbing, a steady thud-thud-thud that makes everything hurt just a little bit more. Sticky, thick fluid is dripping down the side of her face and she smells the telltale metallic tinge of blood. Her head’s bleeding, she realises belatedly. Dread spreads through her, her skin tingling with warning.

This is all wrong. All wrong.

She wants to wipe at the blood on her face, but finds that her hands are also tied behind her and suddenly the dread transforms into full blown terror and the events of the night before rushes back to her.

Fighting with Oliver.

Storming out after. 

Someone hitting her.

Blacking out.

“Oh no, oh no,” she moans. She tries to wrench her hands apart, but they’re bound too tightly. “This isn’t happening, oh God. Why me?”

Her mouth is dry and she licks her lips, forcing herself to calm down. She’s watched so many kidnapping movies, and the last thing she should be doing is freak out. If there was a time for her keep her cool, this was it. No good comes from panicking, ever.

She’s _really close_ to panicking though.

She doesn’t even know where she is, or how long she’s been out cold, and how she’s going to get out of this really, really scary predicament. She shifts, needing the thing to stop poking at her back and she manages to move about an inch, much to her relief.

She turns her head and realises that it’s just the sharp edge of a chipped brick on the wall she’s been leaning against. Nothing she can use to her advantage.

She sucks in a deep breath. Think, Felicity. Use that big brain of yours since you can use nothing else properly.

“Hello?!! Someone, please help!” she yells, but she’s met with silence. “Hello?!”

Nothing.

The floor under her is cold and damp, hard. Okay, she can work with that. It reminds her of the floor of Oliver’s lair, so maybe she’s in a basement somewhere. She squints, trying her best to make anything else out.

Four walls, no windows, a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, so she concludes she’s in some sort of room. She can also make out the faint rectangular outline of a door at the far end of the room. That's good, she cheers on the inside. Door is better than no door, despite how far away said door is from her. 

She unfolds her legs to get them out of their bent position and tries to stand up. She pushes her back as hard as she can against the wall to get the leverage she needs to stand up but her bound hands are in the way and she can’t get more than halfway up. She's not strong enough. She groans in frustration when her multiple attempts don't result in anything but the skin on her arms being rubbed raw from the friction.

She's so definitely working more on her core strength if she manages to get out of here. 

When, she corrects herself. Not if. When. Because she is s _o_ getting out of this dumb place. 

She slides back down and instead tries to shuffle to the door on her ass, but her legs are cramping up and her arms are in so much pain she doesn’t get very far before she has to slump back against the wall.

She tilts her head back, willing herself not to cry. She’s not going to give up. She can't. 

“Somebody, help!” she shouts again.

She tries to recall what those self-defense videos on YouTube tried to teach her when she looked them up that one time when she was bored, but she doesn’t remember anything that can help when all her limbs are tied up.

Ugh. God _damn_ it!

Her shoulders are burning, the rope around her ankle is cutting off her circulation and she’s losing the feeling in her feet. She whimpers at the utter hopelessness of her situation.

“ _Help_!!” It’s all she can do for now, scream her lungs out until someone hears her, so she does. “Please!”

And then the door slams open an her heart leaps out of her chest in shock.

“Will you shut the _fuck_ up!?”

A blurry figure appears in the doorway and proceeds to stomp towards her. His voice is vaguely familiar, but she can’t think about that at the moment. Not when the man is hauling her up roughly, hands under her armpits, forcing her to stand up.

“Don’t touch me,” she growls, struggling against her captor. “Let me go, you bastard! Help!!”

He smells like stale beer and sweat and again, something familiar but she just can’t make the connection. Her brain is working sluggishly and it makes her feel horrible. She hates that she can’t see clearly, hates that she can’t think and that she’s in so much pain.

“Listen here, _Felicity_ ,” the man snarls as he pulls against the ties around her wrists, sending another slice of pain shooting through her arms. “You need to shut up.”

This time when he speaks, It hits her all at once. His voice, his scent. The condescending way he says her name, dripping with utter contempt and disdain.  

It’s Mike. Her goddamn _supervisor_.

“You?” She spits out. Indignation replaces her fear because this is _Mike Fucking McGrath_ who she should not be scared of at all. He’s a weedy little turd; useless, dumb Mike who can’t tell the difference between a bit and a byte but is still officially her boss at work.  

“What the _hell_ , Mike?!” She elbows him, hard, using her entire body weight to slam into his side. But her feet are still tied together so she loses her balance and just kind of... falls against him instead.

Mike laughs, a deep, throaty, manic chuckle that sends a chilling tremor down her spine. He yanks her away from him and as she stumbles, he shoves her forcefully against the wall.

Her forehead bounces hard against the concrete and white light bursts behind her eyelids. Felicity holds back her cry of pain, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing her suffer.

“Stay still, and stay quiet, you bitch,” He shoves her harder against the wall, his elbow digging into her back as he growls in her ear. “If you cooperate, maybe you’ll come out of this alive.”

The pressure against her back eases and Mike forces her to turn around. She feels more blood trickle down the side of her face and the entire room starts spinning. She can’t focus on anything, and weird black dots marr her vision as she fights through the pain.

“You know,” Felicity wheezes, hissing through her teeth. “You’re dumber than I thought if you think hurting me is gonna make me cooperate with anyone.”

The back of his hand slams into the side of her face, and blinded by pain, she succumbs to the darkness again.

* * *

 

Diggle doesn’t let Oliver leave the Foundry until they deal with the gash in his leg. He glowers at Diggle the entire time he’s being stitched up, buzzing with impatience because he knows he needs to make amends with Felicity. The sooner the better.  

But the entire process - pulling out shards of glass and bits of debris from the explosion takes far longer than he expected and it’s nearly one in the morning when Diggle’s satisfied that his wound is taken care of. And really, he only has himself to blame for it, he laments, because if he’d given Felicity the chance to lead them out, they would not be in this situation.

See? He’s learning. He can learn.

“Do you think she’s going to be awake?” Oliver asks once they’re packed up and ready to leave for the night. He throws the tarp off his motorcycle, grips the handles and starts wheeling it out.

“She doesn’t usually leave here until much later on a normal night,” Diggle offers. “She might be.”

They walk through the back door and Oliver places his thumb on the security pad - one of the first things Felicity had installed for them. He waits until he hears the sound of the lock engaging before following Diggle the rest of the way out of the building.  

“Think she’ll be up for a quick visit?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t seem to enjoy the last time you showed up at her place unexpectedly,” Diggle shoots him a pointed look before he lets out a huff of laughter. “You can try your luck though, I doubt she can get any more pissed off at you than she already is.”

Oliver rolls his eyes, but knows that Diggle’s not wrong. He’s about to put his helmet on when something in the corner of his eye catches his attention.

“Dig,” he says slowly, as he turns around on his heels, hoping that he’s mistaken. That he’s too tired and that he’s starting to see things. He freezes when he realises he’s not seeing things. His throat closes up, heart hammering in his chest.

Diggle comes to stand next to him, and he feels his friend come to an abrupt stop when he spots it too.

The lone car that’s parked on the side of the quiet street. The single red Mini Cooper.

When Oliver finds his voice, it’s hoarse, tinged with apprehension and concern.

“Diggle, why’s Felicity’s car still here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcome! Thank you for reading, hope you're still enjoying this little journey!!
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	9. Mike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's in a bit of a spot.

“Lets not jump to conclusions. This might not mean anything.”

Ever the voice of reason, Diggle places a hand on Oliver’s shoulder, preventing him from marching straight up to her car. Instead, they walk up to it with careful consideration, hoping that maybe this isn’t her car. That it just happens to be another red Mini Cooper parked right outside the Foundry, completely out of place in the Glades.

Yeah, right.  

“She left us almost an hour ago, Dig.” His gut screams at him that he should already be looking for her. Should be tearing the city apart for her. But he takes his cue from his friend and they circle the car slowly.

He can see that here’s a crunched up Big Belly Burger paper bag in the passenger’s seat and a Jitters coffee cup in the cup holder with her name scrawled on it. The car is undeniably hers, no question about it.

The driver’s side door is unlocked and partially open, setting off the first of the alarm bells in his head. His stomach rolls and he nearly slams his fist into the window and that’s when he notices the streak of dried blood trailing down the edge of the door. Like someone’s been smashed into it.

Someone being _Felicity._

He sees red.

Felicity, who only left the Foundry because of him. Guilt slices through him at the thought that he been the one who sent her running and now she could be bleeding out somewhere, alone - or worse. _Not_ alone. His knees almost buckle at the thought. 

“Oliver,” Diggle warns, his voice cutting through the haze of anger and regret clouding his mind. “Oliver, calm down.”

How is he supposed to _calm down_ that when the smear of blood clearly indicates that she’s been hurt? He’s clenching his teeth so tightly he might shatter his jaw, barely controlling the panicked anxiousness threatening to overwhelm him.

He really wants to hit something. Hard.

“I _can’t_ calm down!” he snaps, fists balled by his sides. "It's  _Felicity_."  

“Hey, she might have decided to go for a walk to clear her head. Could explain why her car’s here,” Diggle offers. It’s a half-hearted attempt at placating him, sure, and it doesn’t explain the blood, but without solid proof, he might very well be right. “Try calling her.”

The anger ebbs away slightly and he manages to uncurl his fingers to dig into the pocket of his pants, pulling his phone out to call her. He starts pacing away from the car, unable to stomach the stain of blood that taunts him with his every passing glance.

His heart hammers against his ribcage, willing for her to pick up and answer the call. Desperate to hear her assuage his fears and tell him that she’s safe at home.

Hell, at this point he’ll even endure another round of Pissed-off Felicity just so that he knows that she’s okay.

Unfortunately for him, it rings out, connects to her voicemail, and the heaviness in his heart only grows. “ _Damn_ it!”

“Hey, Oliver. Got something,” Diggle calls out, making him turn around. Diggle’s crouching down, peering under the car. He reaches out for something and when his hand reappears, he’s holding one side of a pair of bright pink heels.

They didn’t need the confirmation, but the sight of the heels she’d been wearing not an hour ago as she stormed her way out of the Foundry shakes him to the very core of his soul. His eyes meet Diggle’s and he sees the same resigned desperation reflected in his eyes.

Oliver exhales, taking everything in slowly. Abandoned car, blood, one shoe.

His heart’s racing a mile a minute, and a cold chill settles in his veins.

Diggle stands up, still clutching her shoe and squares his shoulders. The seriousness of the situation doesn’t escape him either, and seeing the resolve and determination in Diggle steels him, replacing the worry and panic that had been free-falling through his entire body.  

They exchange a silent look of understanding.

They’re going to fucking get her back.

* * *

  

Oh.

Oh, she’s in _so much pain._

Her head is throbbing, pain shooting down the side of her face where Mike had hit her. Her arms feel like they’ve been wrenched out of her shoulder sockets and to top it all off, she’s still pretty blind without her glasses.

She blinks several times, taking stock of her situation. Mike doesn’t seem to be around, which does wonders for her anxiety level but the undercurrent of fear is ever present and she’s doing all she can not to completely melt down and have have a full blown panic attack.

She’s no longer in the same room she’d woken up in before. It’s bigger, and darker, she thinks - but she can’t be sure. She can smell fresh paint around her and she stores that knowledge just in case it comes in handy later.

He’s put her in a chair this time, bound her to it, hands pulled behind her, tied to the back of the chair. Felicity leans forward, testing her bindings, ignoring the burning soreness blooming along the length of her arms - from her shoulders down all the way to her wrists - but nothing gives.

Her legs - wow, she’s suddenly so glad she decided on jeans this morning instead of a dress - are tied together by a piece of rope looped around the front left leg of the metal chair so they’re leaning uncomfortably to one side. The back of her thighs and her ass feel like they’ve been through a meat tenderiser and it occurs to her that he must have dragged her by her arms, along the floor to wherever they are now.

_Rude._

She sits back with a huff when she decides she’s not getting out of her restraints any time soon. 

“Oh, good, you’re awake. Took you long enough.”

Felicity whips her head around at the sneer of Mike’s voice, pain flaring in her head at the sudden movement. She groans through it, biting down hard on her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

“I apologise for my less than satisfactory recovery time from being physically abused,” she tells him, as if being held captive by her psycho boss is a common, daily occurrence. “You should write that down for my next performance review.”

Mike emerges from the shadows, an unscrutinisable expression on his face. “Always have something to say, don’t you, Felicity? Yapping away all the time, never knowing when to shut the hell up.”

“Are you saying you kidnapped me because I talk too much? _Really_? Because let me tell you, this punishment definitely does not fit the crime. Not that talking is a crime at all in the first place.”

Felicity twists her wrists behind her as she speaks, having watched enough movies to know that perseverance always pays off. If she keeps talking and distracting him, she might get a chance to loosen her ties before he notices and give herself an upper hand.

“Don’t be stupid.” Mike advances on her and Felicity almost says something about how _he’s_ the stupid one, but then she sees that he’s clutching a knife in his right hand and decides that maybe she should keep her thoughts to herself for once. 

“You’re here because you have something I want.”

She eyes the sharp glint of his knife warily, then looks back up at him.

“I can hundred percent assure you that I have nothing you want. I don’t think you and I share a lot of things in common, and you’re a Trekkie so we can’t even share anecdotes about that, since you know. Big Star Wars fan here. But that aside, I still don’t think -”

The next thing she knows, his palm connects with the side of her face, _hard_ , and her neck whips to the side, white hot, searing pain erupting from behind her eyes. She can taste blood on her tongue and realises that he’s split her lip.

“Why don’t you ever shut up?!”

Ironically, she doesn’t respond, her jaw still stinging from the blow, tears pooling in her eyes. She’s trying her best to put on a brave face, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how scared out of her mind she is, but she’s not sure how long she’s going to be able to keep it together.

“Still don’t know what you want from me,” she manages to say, even though every word from her lips sends another jolt of pain through her face.

He towers over her, knife dangling at his side, face frowning in contemplation. “Information,” he tells her finally. “Information on the Hood.”

Felicity freezes, but has enough sense to school her features so the surprise isn’t reflected on her face. Her heart thrums with dread, lead in her veins as she watches Mike leer at her. Her brain feels like it’s short-circuiting. She’s been so careful these last few weeks - _how_ \- she swallows mid-thought and wills herself to keep calm. She has to be smart about this. Being smart is all she can do at the moment.

He doesn’t know anything and that’s why he’s asking her for information. The idiot is on a fishing trip with nothing but a line and no bait and she’s not going to let him win. Despite her entire body being in complete agony, now that she knows why he’s taken her, Felicity feels a little spark of determination bloom in her chest. He hasn’t tipped his hand yet, and neither will she.

Oliver may be a stubborn, selfish, prick but he’s... well, he’s Oliver. The guy who let her go nuts on his lair without questioning her, who’s fighting his own demons as he tries to atone for his father’s sins, and despite his questionable methods, a _good_ man trying to take down the criminals of Starling City. He doesn’t deserve to be sold out to some two-bit criminal wannabe.

“The... Hood?” she repeats, playing dumb. “What makes you think I have information on him?”

“Oh, Felicity,” Mike drawls. He crouches down in front of the chair so he’s looking directly at her, a menacing spark in his eyes. “Felicity, Felicity, Felicity.”

She swallows, getting very uncomfortable with just how close the knife is to her body. She squirms in her seat, unable to look away from the gleaming weapon in his hand. She starts moving her wrists with renewed interest, feeling like the tide is about to shift and _not_ in her favour.

“Do you remember the new tablet you requisitioned?” he asks, and although it sounds like an innocent enough question, it’s laden with sinister intent and she knows he has a purpose to his madness. He stands up and starts pacing.

"Yes, because I broke my my old one,” she explains, playing along. Keep him talking, she tells herself. Buy some time so she can think of what to do. “Company policy lets me have a replacement.”  

Mike continues on his villain-like monologue, still talking about her tablet, of all things, but Felicity pays him no heed. He’s wandering back and forth in front of her, so she takes the opportunity to really work on her bindings while he’s not looking.

Her blurry vision is an impediment, for sure, but she’s not totally blind. If she manages to get her hands untied, she thinks she can take him. Hopefully her subconscious has managed to retain something from all those hours watching Diggle and Oliver training in the lair. And adrenaline always makes people stronger, right? She pulls harder at the rope around her wrists. She can so do this.

She spares a second to wonder if maybe Oliver and Diggle will... She shuts down that train of thought down right away.  _She_ walked out on _them_ , and they have no reason to look for her. For all they know she’s gone home to stew and won’t come looking for her for a while.

God, she doesn’t even know _how long_ she’s been held captive.

She turns her attention back to Mike who’s still rattling on about her tablet, unaware that she hasn’t been listening to him.

“- and whose broken tablet happened to end up on my desk? Yours, Felicity. Yours. And I’ll admit, you did a good job on it, thoroughly wiped all traces of everything that had been on there.”

He stops pacing right in front of her and crouches back down. “Except one thing. Your tablet’s last known location.”

Felicity blanches.

Crap. Crap, crap, _crap_.

How could she have forgotten that Queen Consolidated keeps records of all their hardware? They routinely track the GPS locators to make sure employees don’t take advantage of the technology for anything other than work.

 _Damn it_. She has a feeling she knows what Mike’s getting at.

He’s talking about that first night she was trying to figure out the data leak. That damned Friday night when her entire life got turned upside down when she’d spotted the Hood. She’d brought her work tablet out to the abandoned building as she tracked down the I.P. address without eve thinking that she was being tracked. 

“I see it in your eyes, Felicity. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” Mike sneers, leaning into her. “I was just being a responsible superior, you know? Thought I’d check out the location - what business did I.T. support have out in the Glades in the wee hours of the morning anyway? And guess what I stumbled upon when I got there last week?”

He runs his knife along the front of her shirt, tripping over the buttons of her blouse, and Felicity shudders involuntarily.

“Tetanus and STDs?” she mutters.

“I’m not joking, Felicity!” Mike snarls. 

He flicks his wrist so the knife slices along the skin of her collarbone and Felicity gasps, flinching forward at the pain. She feels the blood trickling down, and Mike’s eyes follow the trail down her top. He crows in delight and starts laughing hysterically, as if the sight of her blood finally snapped something in him.

“Perfect employee Felicity Smoak is human after all!” he shouts in glee. “Look at that, you bleed just like everyone else!”

His eyes are wild, hands trembling, holding the knife very precariously in his hand. Dear God, he’s actually going _crazy._

MIke swings the knife up, cutting through the air in a semicircle, the tip of the knife glancing off the sleeve of her shirt. She grimaces at the contact and shifts in her seat. He’s already proven multiple times that he’s not averse to hurting her and he doesn’t seem worried at all about how close he’s come to cutting her in half.

Reality sinks in, finally, and it hits her that this is a situation that might end up with her _dead._

Fuck.

“What I stumbled on, if you must know, is you, arguing with the Hood, right out in the open, plain as day. Kinda stupid, if you asked me. But not surprising, you’re just a dumb I.T girl.”

Felicity swallows when his words sink in. Her mouth is dry, her tongue feels thick with fear. Her fingers are still working on the rope around her wrists, but her stomach is sinking even further with every passing second.

She’s well and truly scared for her life. Mike, the disgruntled, slightly idiotic, boss - she can handle. Mike, psychopathic, crazy-eyed, weapon wielding maniac - not so much.

“I really don’t know who he is,” she says. The lie feels foreign on her tongue and she bites back another whimper of pain. She tries to infuse more sincerity in her words. “Honestly. Don’t you think I would have gone to the cops by now if I do?”

“You were right in front of him!” MIke’s scream is deafening, spittle flying everywhere. “You were arguing with him! I saw you!”

The dark, cavernous hole of despair in her heart expands at the revelation. He’s talking about that fateful day a little over a week ago when she’d yelled at Oliver about being the Hood after piggybacking off the thumbdrive hack she gave him. The day he brought her into his lair for the first time under the pretext of getting out of the rain.

Mike’s staring at her expectantly, like he’s waiting for her to just _tell him_. Hah. She might be in a whole world of pain, but no way is she letting him win. She’s confronted _the Hood_ , damn it - granted, Oliver did keep repeating he wasn’t going to hurt her, but still. She's not giving in to him easily.

“Still don’t know who he is,” Felicity mumbles defiantly. “That eye paint thing he puts on his face? _Really_ good disguise.”

She doesn’t notice the flash of the knife until it’s too late and by the time she registers it, he’s cut her again straight across her rib cage, slicing right through her blouse and over her skin.

Felicity gasps in shock, choking as she feels every agonising inch of the cut. It's deep this time, unlike the nick on her collar bone. Her blood soaks her shirt immediately and the burning sensation spreads through her entire body. She whimpers, breathing through her nose, willing herself not to black out from the pain, to stay conscious. 

“I am not playing around!” Mike bellows. “T _ell me who he is_!”

Felicity forces herself to look up at him, the stretch in her abdomen causing the cut to widen and another jolt of pain shoots through her. In the back of her mind, she wonders how much longer can she take it. All signs currently point to ‘not much longer’ but she wills herself to stay strong.

She needs to keep him talking if she even wants a chance to get away. She can feel the rope around her wrists coming loose, finally, she’s picking apart the threads with her fingernails, but it’s slow work.

“Why - why,” Felicity grits her teeth, her voice cracking - she hates sounding so broken. “Why did you wait a whole week to ask me about him if you found out all that time ago? That seems inefficient.”

“Had to get some things in order.” He surprises her by actually answering. “Do you know how much people are willing to pay to get information on the Hood? To find out who he is? And I don’t mean the S.C.P.D. He’s made himself a lot of enemies, you know?”

“So this is just about the money for you. Of course, it is,” she says as she rolls her eyes. “Selling information to the highest bidder. How... pedestrian of you.”

She’s playing with fire by taunting him like this, but it’s the only way she can think of to buy herself more time. The downside to it is that she’s making him so angry she can see the fury in his eyes as he advances towards her again. 

“Enough talking, you bitch!” he shouts, waving the knife in front of him. “ _Who is he?!_ ”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I did know,” Felicity shrugs with nonchalance as her fingers work furiously behind her to undo the knots. “You haven’t really given me any real incentives here, Mike.”

He slams his fist into her stomach in response, right over her still bleeding wound, and this time she can’t contain the scream that escapes from her lips.

“You know, even if you don’t tell me, I’m sure the others can get it out of you,” he whispers in her ear as he twists his hands deeper into her cut. “And they’re far more dangerous than I am.”

Felicity can’t think straight, can’t hear anything that he’s saying past the strange rushing noise in her ears. Her middle section goes completely numb from the shock and she can barely breathe.

Her tears are falling freely and her anguished sobs echo around them, bouncing off the walls, joining the chorus of Mike’s sadistic laughter.

Get your hands free.

Get your hands free _now_.

It’s the only thought that runs through her head as she realises that she can’t take much more of his brand of torture.

She’s focuses everything she has on ignoring the burning pain ripping her body apart and fighting through the white spots blooming in her eyes as she pulls at the ropes around her hands again.

She can do this. She’s  _absolutely not_ going to die at the hands of her psychotic boss.

“So you can either tell me, or I’ll give you to them, and you can tell _them_. Everybody wins.”

Mike laughs again, throwing his head back, completely oblivious to what she’s doing behind her back. The knife dangles by his side, stained red with her blood and the sight of it makes her want to throw up.

And suddenly, like a sign from the universe, her fingers slide into a loop of string and her heart skips a beat. A wave of hope crashes into her and she tugs on it. The rope loosens and she holds her breath in anticipation. She tugs again and this time it gives, completely falling away.

Blood rushes back into her fingers, her circulation restored. She flexes them, keeping her eye trained on Mike as she contemplates her next move. Her legs are still tied, but she can work with that. 

Determination replaces the cold dread in her veins, hardening her resolve. Her wounds - more so the one across her ribs than the cut along her collarbone - still hurt like a bitch, and she’s sure she’s lost a fair amount of blood which is worrying, but she can’t think about that right now.

“Hey, Mike,” she grunts as she gathers up the very last vestiges of strength she can muster.

The man turns to her mid-ramble, eyebrows raised.

“You wanna know who the Hood is?” Felicity licks her lips, clenching her fists behind her, readying herself. “Come closer so I can tell you.”

She pictures the move she’s seen Oliver perform on Diggle so many times, envisions it so clearly in her mind’s eye, willing her body to cooperate despite the fact that she feels like a helpless rag doll.

Mike walks over to her, a dangerous shine in his eyes. He places his arms on either side of the chair, bracketing her in. “Well, who is he, bitch?”

And then she _lunges_ at him, arms swinging out in front of her the way Oliver flies at Diggle when he wants to execute a surprise take down, and she tackles Mike to the ground.

The momentum causes her to fall with her legs still tied to the chair, crashing into him unceremoniously. His head smacks against the ground with a loud crack, and her hips twist painfully at the awkward angle. She’s sure she’s made her wounds so much worse but she’s accomplished what she wanted to do.  

“The Hood, Mike, is your worst fucking nightmare,” she hisses at him, before landing a hard punch into his face.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Felicity make it out alive, oh no!!
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	10. To the Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's no damsel, but she's definitely in distress.

If there’s one thing that Oliver had learned from his five year stint away from Starling City, is that he’s become an irrationally impatient man, always searching for something to do - whether as the Hood or as Oliver. He’s become a man of action, for lack of a better word.

Sure, the _Ollie Queen_ of old had been perfectly happy loafing around aimlessly; the only ‘action'  _he_ cared about being the pursuit of pleasure and self-indulgence. But that was then. Before all the blood and death and definitely before he started moonlighting as a vigilante.

So it comes as no surprise that his blood is thrumming with unease. Each passing second that he spends not out on the streets actively looking for Felicity sends him further down a cavernous spiral of rage and guilt. Frustration builds from within and he's going mad with it, his nails digging into the flesh of his palm every time the computer returns a negative search result. 

“Dig, can you work _faster_?”

“I am doing my best!” Diggle replies with just as much exasperation. “I can’t work the system like she can!”

They’ve been trying to get video footage from the C.C.T.V cameras on the buildings nearby but Diggle’s struggling getting anything worth their time. All they have so far is a grainy traffic camera feed from a few blocks away, which doesn’t help anything.

Oliver slams his fist onto the table, sending arrowheads flying. He keeps replaying the scene of her walking out over and over again in his head and it feels like he's being socked in the gut each time he remembers how he’d inadvertently hurt her.

How the last thing he said to her had been in anger and _that_ might be the last thing he’ll say to her. 

His chest tightens at the thought.

“Dig,” he pleads again, looking over his partner’s shoulder, scanning the monitor for some sort of sign. “We have to find her.”

“I know,” Diggle mutters. “I _know_. But Felicity disabled all the security cameras on all the buildings on this street for our sake, so we don’t have access to those feeds. We can’t see -”

“What about _our_ security?” Oliver asks suddenly.

“What?”

“Our own security isn’t disabled, Dig.”

“I know, but we don’t have cameras where her car’s parked. We -”

“But the biometric scanner she installed at the back door is always live, right? She wouldn’t stop talking about it when she put it in.”

Diggle turns around in his chair, head cocked. “You think... you think it recorded something when she was taken?”

“The fingerprint scanner’s fallback is a voice matching protocol. She mentioned that. She made us say a million different phrases to set up a baseline for it, remember? And it saves all the audio within a fifteen feet radius in ten minute intervals.”

He’s on a roll now, hope renewed. He pushes Diggle aside, taking over the keyboard. Diggle moves and they swap places, Oliver at the desk, and Diggle hovering at his shoulders. 

“So if we accessed the logs from an hour ago, when she left, maybe...” He trails off, scanning the folders that Felicity’s helpfully labelled for them.

He eventually stumbles upon one called ‘ _Security Logs - Oliver do not delete_ ’ and he finds himself smiling involuntarily. He clicks into it and true enough, it contains a bunch of audio recordings.

“That one,” Diggle says, pointing to a file saved a few minutes after Felicity left. Oliver pulls it up and hits play.

Silence.

Oliver's can't keep still, legs bouncing, fidgeting with the little trinkets Felicity's left on her desk. Minutes pass with more silence until.

“Was that -”

Oliver slides the media bar back and hits replay.

“That sounds like a door,” Diggle says, as Oliver leans forward in the sea. “Definitely sounds like a car door.”

And then they hear it.

Goosebumps form on Oliver’s skin as he hears a faint sigh, then her gasp and a loud thud, before another voice comes into play. Oliver leans forward involuntarily, fists clenched. 

_“Where’s your precious Hood now, bitch?”_

After that, all they hear are the sounds of someone dragging something away, a heavy weight against the ground that eventually fades out of range of the recorder.

Oliver’s out of the chair even before the recording ends. He’s trembling with barely restrained rage, stomach churning, different scenarios of what could have happened to her playing in his head.

Did this asshole hit her? How hard did he hit her? How hurt is she? Why would he take her and leave her car? _Where_ did he take her?

He needs to do something, _anything_ , before he takes it out on the computers in front of him. Every fibre of his being itches to kill this guy who dared lay a hand on Felicity. And he'd taken her an hour, _more_ than an hour, ago now - who knows what -

“Hey, man,” Diggle cuts into his thoughts. Not for the first time, he's grateful for the other man's calming presence in her life. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Oliver tears his gaze away from the now-idle computer to look at Diggle. “I’m thinking that I’m going to _kill him_.”

“Yeah, I get that, Oliver. But we still need to know who _him_ is,” Diggle stares him down, sensible as ever. “All we have is his voice.”

Something clicks in him just as Diggle says that. His _voice_. Felicity had said something about voices once, when she was complaining about his voice modulator. He leans over the desk again, squinting at the monitors.

“Felicity has a voice recognition program,” he tells Diggle as her words come back to him. “She wrote it when she was trying to identify the Hood’s voice behind the voice modulator. She said voices are just as identifiable as fingerprints, given the right software - I think...”

He flicks through the various icons on the desktop, noting with interest that she also has a folder called _‘Suit Upgrades’_ but he bypasses it in favour of the voice recognition program.

“Got it,” he mutters, dragging the audio recording and dropping it into the program. A screen pops up automatically and it starts running some sort of matching algorithm and the tightness chest eases.

They can do this. They’ll find her.

He turns back to Diggle, about to tell him to keep an eye on the program while he Hoods up, but Diggle’s wearing a strange expression on his face and it makes him hesitate.

“What's that look for?”

“Nothing, you’re just," Diggle pauses, then leans a hip on the desk as he studies something on Oliver's face, like he's seeing him for the first time in a long time. "Sometimes I think nothing you do surprises me anymore, and then you go ahead and prove me wrong.”

Oliver grunts in frustration, he doesn’t have the time to decode whatever Diggle’s vaguely hinting at. He rolls his neck, hearing the cracks as he works the kinks out, then glares at Diggle.

“ _What,_ Dig _?_ ” he repeats. “We don’t have time for this, just say what you want to say.”

“All that time Felicity was down here fixing the place up, you either sat in the corner brooding, or ignored her while you worked out. I thought you were just tolerating her presence here. Going through the motions because there was nothing else you can do. But you - you were actually listening to everything she said weren’t you? You remembered the stuff she said about our security system, and her voice recognition software,which I didn’t even know about.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Oliver lets out a suffering sigh. “Of course I was listening, Diggle. She says interesting things, she’s so smart, and she’s funny, what’s the problem here?”

“Look, it’s nothing. It just felt like you weren't. That’s why Felicity taught _me_ to how to work all of this - because she didn’t think you cared what she was doing -”

“What?!” Oliver’s completely taken aback at the notion. “She thought I didn’t _care_?”

He rubs a hand down his face.

Okay, so maybe he hasn’t been entirely forthcoming about how much he appreciates her, but that’s only because he’s trying to maintain some form of professionalism between them. He’s only known her for a couple of weeks but it feels like it’s been a lot longer. It’s scary really, just how much he’s gotten used to her presence in his life and being scared is something he's not used to.

But she undeniably, without question, absolutely _captivates_ him.

He’s drawn to her like he hasn’t been to anyone else before and he never knows what to do with himself whenever he’s around her. He’s always torn between wanting to know every little about her life and keeping her away from him so she’s not tainted by the brutality of the life that he leads. He's never sure if he should stop her when she rambles, or keep her going because he's in love with the tinkle of her laughter and the gentle lilt of her voice. 

So he keeps his distance when she’s around, pretending to work on his arrowheads, letting Diggle and Felicity do all the talking and he - well. He just listens. Hangs on to every word that falls from her lips, in fact.

She’s the ethereal light to his darkness, and he can’t help it. She infuses her own brand of humour and happiness in the otherwise dreary basement they work out of, and it makes him feel a little bit more _normal._

He doesn’t start conversations with her, but he takes what he can get from her quiet conversations with Diggle. He squirrels away tidbits about her life, stores it in his mental lockbox along with all the happier memories of his pre-island life.

“She really doesn’t think I care about her?”

His voice cracks, hoarse, bordering on pitiful and bleak, but now that he knows - _really_ knows that her last impression of him is ‘Oliver Queen: selfish, untrusting, _uncaring_ monster of a man’ - it rips him up inside.

Diggle places a placating hand on his shoulder, as if he senses his inner turmoil. “I think,” he chooses his words carefully. “She knows that you care about your mission, and yeah, that includes her too in a general, big picture way - but when - and I mean _when_ , not if - we get her back, you should also make it clear that she’s important to you, outside the confines of your mission.”

Oliver scratches the back of his neck, feeling a migraine coming on from the torrent of emotions he’s trying to keep at bay. But just then, the computer pings loudly and the two men turn to the screens, conversation momentarily tabled.

Oliver’s heart skips a beat.

“Program got a match,” Diggle murmurs, and then his eyes widen when scans the details of the man whose face is staring back at them. “Oliver... _son of a bitch,_  he works for Q.C. He’s Felicity’s boss.”

“Yes, I know. She calls him an incompetent fool,” Oliver grunts. Having recognised Mike’s face the moment it popped up on the monitor, he’s already in his suit, smearing the grease over his eyes by the time Diggle pulls up everything they have on him.

Gone is the Oliver Queen from a minute ago, overwrought with emotion and uncertainty. In his place is the Hood, weathered survivor, merciless vigilante hellbent on getting his friend back.

Mike McGrath will not stand a chance.

“Track his cell,” Oliver orders, voice hard as steel, leaving no room for doubt that he means business. This guy _hurt_ her and he’s going to get his due.

He picks up his bow and makes sure he has a few explosive arrows in his quiver - just in case - before slinging it over his shoulders. He reaches for the keys to his motorcycle, but Diggle steps in front of him before he can put it on.

“I’m coming with you. We’ll track him with Felicity’s tablet in the van. If she’s...” Diggle doesn’t finish his sentence but he doesn’t have to.

If Felicity’s hurt, or _worse_ \- the pit in his stomach grows at the thought - he can’t bring her back on his bike. Oliver swallows, clenches his fists and nods his agreement. “You drive, I’ll get his position.”

Either way, he’s not going to come back without her.

* * *

 

Felicity never thrown a punch in her entire life. She’s wanted to plenty of times, sure, but never actually done it, so when she realises she’s managed to knock Mike out cold, it fills her with a tremendous amount of satisfaction. It's quite possible that hanging around Oliver and Diggle as they trained had more benefits than ogling hot, sweaty, shirtless bodies.

She stretches out her fingers, wincing as she feels the sharp pull in her knuckles. But thankfully, in the grand scheme of things, her hand hurts a lot less than she expected. Then again, she’s currently bleeding out from a very deeply sliced up stomach, and a whole slew of other being-physically-dragged-around-and-slapped related injuries, so comparatively it’s a lot more bearable.

She groans, feeling extremely lightheaded. How much blood has she lost? She hasn’t been keeping track but feels the stickiness seeping into her clothes so she assumes she’s lying in a puddle of a lot of blood and it’s -

It’s not the most ideal situation she wants to be in.

In that moment it occurs to her that there's a minuscule chance she might not survive this anyway. How long can she last like this? She’s positive that she’s close to the 4 pint threshold of how much blood a person can lose before it becomes fatal. Mike won’t stay unconscious forever, and what’s she supposed to do when he eventually comes to?

“Not give up, is what,” she mutters to herself. “Not gonna give up - oh my god I Rickrolled myself.”

She pushes up on her elbows, grimacing through the pain. Her legs are still tied to the chair and she kicks out experimentally, hoping that somehow in the scuffle, the ties had come lose. Unfortunately for her, they’re still bound tightly around the metal leg of the chair. The effort it takes for her to remain upright exhausts her, and she falls back onto the ground limply.

She has to blink a few times to get rid of the spots in her her already sub-par vision, and tries to sit up again. It feels like there are cobwebs in her brain and she can’t think properly but she perseveres.

If she can figure out where his knife fell when she tackled him, she might be able to cut through the ropes around her legs and get free. The thought of being able to move again is so welcome and it infuses with a renewed determination.

The concrete floor is smooth against her back and she drags herself out of the puddle of now drying blood. The chair scrapes noisily against the floor and she casts a cautious glance at Mike, hoping it doesn’t wake him.

When he doesn’t budge, she continues, inching her way towards his body - the knife was probably near him, she figures. She has to take a break every couple of seconds for fear of passing out. The exertion is killing her and every movement reopens the slash in her stomach, causing more blood to spill from the wound. 

She spreads her arms wide, fingers stretched out, feeling along the floor hoping she’ll come across the knife in her exploration.

Then finally, _finally,_ her elbow bumps against the smooth wooden handle of the knife - or so that’s what she hopes it is. She twists around, biting her bottom lip at the agony that rips through her midsection at the position, and reaches out to the object. Sure enough, elation rushing through her veins, it’s the knife, caked in blood and grime.

With Herculean effort she didn’t think she had, she pushes herself up again, dragging her feet in so she can reach the ties. She’s single-minded about it now, blocking out every thought - every shooting pain in her body as she hacks and saws through the rope around her ankles.

Hope flutters in her chest.

She still might survive this.

She _will_ survive.

When the ropes fall away, she cries with relief. Or she would have, if she had the energy to spare on tears. Instead, she focuses on flexing her toes and rolling her ankles to get the feeling back in them.

A million things are racing through her head, terror and panic among them, but she finds that she’s unable to hold on to any any particular thought long enough. Her head’s fuzzy and sluggish - something she’s not used to, obviously, and she blames the trauma and blood loss on her less than stellar ability to think.

It’s not a feeling she’s comfortable with.

Suddenly, a low groan reaches her ears and goes stiff at the noise. Sweat beads on her forehead at the implication. Her eyes drift over to Mike involuntarily.

“No, please,” she wheezes as she places her feet flat on the ground and forces herself to stand. “Don’t get up yet, don’t get up yet...”

Mike groans again, louder, and it spurs her on. Her grip on the knife tightens as she finds her footing, one arm pressing over the wound on her stomach. She shuffles away from him, every step sending a jolt of agony through her entire body. 

All she has to do is find an exit.

“Stupid bitch,’ Mike’s growls as he comes to. His voice wafts towards her. “You broke my nose!” 

A self-satisfied smile stretches across the face, but she keeps walking, one side of her body pressed against the wall for support, as she starts feeling for a doorway, or a window, or anything that can help. Something to put between her and the psychopath.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Mike taunts her. 

The sound of footsteps behind her makes her pause, terror resurfacing. She closes her eyes, wills herself not to think about what might be about to happen to her. She can't outrun - out walk, at this rate - him. He has a broken nose. She feels pretty much broken all over.

What would Oliver do?

The random thought floats through her pain-addled brain. She wants to laugh at herself. Of course, _of course_ \- it’s him she thinks about now. Stupid, stubborn Oliver, who didn’t trust her enough to lead him to safety earlier in the night. No, maybe it as yesterday? She’s not sure anymore. But, she thinks sardonically, maybe his hesitance had been warranted since she doesn’t seem to be doing so well right now.

Still. What would Oliver do?

Fight, is what, the very small part of her still clinging on to hope answers.

He’d fight.

And so will she.

She swings around, knife held out in front of her. “Don’t come any closer, Mike,” she warns. “Let me go, and maybe I’ll consider not telling the cops anything.”

His menacing face looms in front of her, but she doesn’t back down. She jabs the knife in his direction, but he sidesteps it easily.

So she tries a second time, grunting as she feels her wound tear open again. This time, he catches her wrist and twists. Hard. Her knees buckle and she lets out a blood curling scream as she crumples towards the floor.

“It’s cute you think you can get away from me,” he sneers.

His hold on her wrist tightens and Felicity lets out another whimper. Her vision blurs, black spots popping up obscuring what little is left of her view. 

“I think I’m going to enjoy this. I’m going to have some fun with you before handing you over to the Triad,” Mike grins as he twists her wrist again, making the knife clatter to the ground. “Consider it payback for breaking my nose.”

Felicity feels nothing now. Her entire body is numb and she doesn’t think she has very much time left. She’s kneeling on the hard concrete, her upper body stretched upwards as Mike keeps his tight grip around her wrist.

“Fuck you, Mike,” Felicity growls, and with all the strength she has left, she leans backwards, and then throws her entire body weight forward, effectively headbutting him.

Right in his crotch.

He howls at the impact, backing off and dropping her hand immediately. Felicity feels herself falling forward and she turns at the last minute, landing on her side instead of smacking her head on the ground. She can no longer see, everything’s turned black around her, but a smile blooms on her face knowing she managed to land one more hit on him.

“Don’t procreate,” Felicity chokes around a mouthful of blood.

“Shut the fuck up!” Mike screeches, and she thinks she hears him picking up the knife that she dropped, and she should be more worried about that, but her care factor has diminished to a big, fat zero.

She feels no pain. She could _so_ just fall asleep for a hundred days right now, and maybe when she wakes up it’ll all be a horrible nightmare.

Yeah, she’ll wake up the next day and go to work as usual, and then to the lair where she’ll tell Dig and Oliver about this crazy, insane, dream about her asshole of supervisor, and the two men will laugh at her and she’ll feel so good because she’s managed to make these two moody, brooding men smile.

Then they’ll go put an arrow in whoever’s next on Oliver’s list all the while arguing with her on comms, but then they’ll come back and everything will be fine.  

It’s her last thought as she succumbs to the white nothingness.

Oliver will come back, and everything will be just fine.

* * *

 

The blood curling scream that echoes down the deserted hallway causes Oliver to freeze, fear like nothing he’s ever felt before flooding his bloodstream. 

It’s her.

 _"Oliver, what was that?”_ Diggle’s panicked voice asks in his ear.

He doesn’t bother with an answer as he takes off in the direction of the scream. He hears faint voices coming from the room furthest away from him and his feet move on autopilot.

The door doesn’t slow him down. He barrels through it in a fit of rage and force, shoulder first, sending the metal flying, bits of brick flying in his face. 

He skids into the room, seeing red, blood boiling, his bow held out in front of him, arrow notched at the ready.

And then he sees her. Slumped in the corner of the room, jeans and shirt soaked red, not moving, as a man kneels over her with a knife in held high, as if he’s about to start dissecting her.

Bile rises in his throat at the sight and Oliver doesn’t even blink as he lets the arrow loose. It flies right into the man’s shoulder, impaling itself right through, making him drop the knife.

“What the _fuck_?!” The man - Mike, Oliver recognises, stares at him aghast, one of his grasping at the shaft, trying to pull it out to no avail. Oliver notices that his nose is bleeding and crooked and a surge of pride swells in him.

Atta girl, Felicity.

“ _Stay away from her_!” Oliver shouts as he marches towards Mike. His electronically manipulated voice reverberates around him. _“Touch her again and the next arrow goes through your skull!”_

“Bitch deserved it,” the piece of shit croaks in between his gasps of pain.

When he gets to Mike, he hauls him upright with a single hand, fist curled around his collar. MIke's wide-eyed and trembling, not so confident anymore now that he's face to face with the Hood. His feet dangle in the air and he opens and closes his mouth but nothing but sad whimpers fall from his lips. 

" _What did you call her?_ " Oliver growls, slamming Mike into the wall. He reaches up to the arrow protruding from his shoulder and pushes it deeper. He twists it, turns it agonizingly slowly, Mike's resulting cries of pain like music to his ears. He deserves to die. He deserves to _die._  

He can't see anything else past the sniveling man's sad face, can't hear anything past the repeated pleading falling uncontrollably from Mike's lips. Unable to bear the simpering any longer, he slams Mike against the wall, hard, and lands a punch into his stomach for sheer measure. 

Oliver lets him go then, his limp body sliding onto the ground. He leaves him there without a second thought. Bastard. 

Then he turns around, closes his eyes as he allows himself one second to get his anger under control. When he reopens them, the red edges around his vision is gone and his gaze fixes upon Felicity's form, a bloody heap on the floor.  

"Felicity,” he murmurs, crouching down, chest tightening at the sight before him. There’s so much blood. Some dried, some still wet.

He He feels his heart breaking as he catalogues her injuries, the already purpling bruises along the side of her face, swelling at her jaw - and the... 

The deep, very scary gash in her midsection.

“Dig,” he breathes out desperately. “I got her, but it’s bad. I need you here, bring the medkit.”

_“I'm on my way. Mike?”_

“Taken care of,” he growls. He glances back at Mike with contempt. “For now.”

“ _Ol...Hood_?”

Her voice draws his attention back to Felicity as she comes to, groaning as blinks her eyes at him. Her voice sounds like music in his ears and he forgets about Mike. Forgets about everything around him except her. Felicity, who’s apparently so committed to his secret that she doesn’t call him by his name.

"Yeah, it's me," he tells her softly as he turns his voice modulator off. He gathers her up in his arms, careful not to jostle her too much. He pulls off his gloves, desperate to feel her skin against his. Needing to feel her warmth, needing her to be _real._

“Hey, I’m here. You’re okay,” he croons in a soothing voice. He cuddles her up to his chest, running a palm over her forehead, brushing her beautiful, blonde curls out of her face.“You’re okay, Felicity. I’m here. I’m here.”

“Knew... you’d,” she’s interrupted by a hacking cough and her fingers clutch his biceps as if she’s hanging on to him to stay awake. The worry builds in him and he glances at the door, wishing Diggle would hurry and show up. “Come get me,” she finishes.

“Shh, don’t talk. Dig’s on his way, and we’re gonna get you out of here okay?” Oliver tells her gently, hugging her tighter against his chest.

“Bastard cut me,” Felicity wheezes, not listening to him as usual. Oliver’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry at the familiarity of her stubbornness. “But I... my head... punched his penis.”

Felicity dissolves into giggles and Oliver can’t help the small tug of his lips upwards. “That’s great, honey,” he murmurs, fingers still running through her hair. “But save your energy. You can tell me all about it later.”

“Why -” she coughs again, and this time she opens her eyes and her gaze is so stern Oliver almost forgets _he’s_ meant to be the scary vigilante. Because she’s glaring him with the intensity of a hundred suns and his heart trips in his chest.

“Why does everyone keep telling me to shut up?” Felicity whines, pouting at the question. If she wasn’t currently drenched in blood and unable to focus her gaze on anything, Oliver might have thought she was downright adorable.

But then she submits to another round of nervous coughing and she sighs, closing her eyes again. "I _love_ talking," she whispers.

“Hey, Felicity,” Oliver tilts her chin up, careful not to touch any of her injuries.

Her eyes flutter open again. “Yeah?”

“If you stop talking, just until Dig gets here, I promise we’ll talk all you want when you get better. About everything. Your computers, or kangaroos, or the salmon ladder, anything you want, okay? But you gotta be quiet now.”

“You promise?”

He wants to rip his heart out at the hope in her voice. Is she really so starved of his attention that the idea of being able to talk to him was buoying her, keeping her alive. 

Fuck.  

“ _Felicity_ ,” he mumbles, wrought with emotion. She feels so small in his arms, and he can’t imagine how - because she’s become such a big part of his life.

“When you get better,” he starts saying gruffly, unable to stop himself. He hears his voice crack with the weight of everything he’s wanted to share with her. “I want to tell you -”

“Oliver?! Shit, that’s a lot of blood.”

Oliver frowns at the interruption, drawn out of his spiral of guilt and loathing by Diggle’s arrival. He runs to them, first aid kid in hand. 

When he sees Mike’s body on the ground, Diggle snarls, face contorting into one of the most disgusted looks he’s ever seen on his friend. “This the bastard?” 

“Yeah,” Oliver answers, another glimmer of anger sizzles beneath his skin. “Out cold.”

To his amusement, Diggle growls at the unconscious man, then lands a hard kick against his side. “Asshole,” he mutters.

Then he turns back to Oliver, takes one look at Felicity and crouches down, unpacking the med kit. “Lets get our girl out of here.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone's had a lovely Easter weekend! 
> 
> Comments always welcome, and thank you SO MUCH for reading!! 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	11. All the King's Horses and All the King's Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver doesn't deal with emotions very well.

Felicity wakes slowly, feeling like she’s not in her own body. Her joints feel stiff, a strange tingling all over her body and her throat is so very dry. It’s bright, too bright for her to be in her own room, and the bed she’s lying on feels uncomfortable and scratchy against her skin.

There’s a rhythmic beeping in the background, faint but persistent, along with the steady hum of machinery around her. Her brain feels sluggish and trying to think feels like she’s clawing her way out of quicksand.

She doesn't like this feeling.

What... _happened_? Where is she? Why does her entire body feel like it’s been through a meat grinder?

She tries to sit up, pushing on her elbows for leverage but everything hurts so damned much that she slumps back down in a huff.

“Hey, hey, don’t move, Felicity,” a voice says suddenly, startling her. Her head whips in the direction of the voice, a hand jumping over her heart.

“What the fu - oh, it’s you!” Tension drains from her body when she recognises John Diggle’s blurry face staring back at her. She shoots him a smile, but it quickly fades when her cheeks hurt from it.

“Your glasses are on the side table,” he continues in the same low tenor. “Found a spare in your car.”

She reaches for them eagerly, ignoring the slight pull along her stomach when she twists for it. She jams them on her face. “Oh thank God, I can see again!”  

The world around her snaps into focus and it dawns upon her that she’s in a hospital room, hooked up to various machines. Tubes and leads are running out of the flimsy gown she has on and then - _then_ \- everything that happened to her comes rushing back in vivid technicolor.

She bolts upright, the memories overwhelming her and she has to hold back the urge to throw up.

She’d been _kidnapped._

Beaten and cut up and left to bleed out on the dirty, grimy floor.  

Left to _die._

Had Oliver come for her? It’s all a little hazy. She remembers falling to the ground after attacking Mike one final time. She remembers blacking out just as Mike loomed over her, knife in his hand - and then.

Oliver - the Hood - barging in? Yes. Did he... had he called her _‘honey’_? No. surely not. Maybe.

Why can’t she _remember_?

What’s wrong with her? Oh God, what if she has a _brain_ injury?

The panic must have shown on her face, because not a second later, Diggle’s right there, his hulking body curving around hers in a careful hug.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs into her hair, exuding warmth and safety. “I’ve got you, you’re safe now.”

She releases a shuddering sigh and collapses against Diggle’s solid form, hands clutching the back of his biceps as she collects herself. Resting her cheek against his wall of a chest, she shuts her eyes and counts to ten.

She allows the steady thud-thud-thud of his heart to calm her down, pushing the nightmarish images of her lying in a pool of her own blood away into the furthest corner of her mind.

“Where’s Oliver?” she wonders out loud, slowly peeling herself from him once she’s confident enough that she’s not going to throw up over her friend.   

She cracks open an eye and looks past Diggle towards the door, half expecting him to be lurking quietly in all his grumpy glory the way he does when he’s in the lair. But he isn’t, and it’s stupid, but she feels a twinge of disappointment at his absence.

“He’s... handling Mike,” Diggle offers vaguely, shifting so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.  “So you don’t have to worry about the bastard anymore.”

“Oh, okay.”

Right. He’s busy taking care of things for her, so there’s no reason for the pang of melancholy that settles in her bones at the fact that he wasn’t there when she woke up, but she can’t help it. It would have been nice to see him.

Just to thank him for saving her, of course. Not... no other reason, definitely.

They’d parted ways on bad terms anyway. Coming to her rescue her was just part of his hero complex and it didn’t mean that he’d changed his mind about her. Or changed what he thought of her skills.

She shouldn’t be surprised at all that he wasn’t here.

“You’re freaking me out with how quiet you are, Felicity,” Diggle cuts into her thoughts, apparently picking up on her mood. “Kinda weird not having you babbling at me.”

Felicity shakes her head in an attempt to free herself from the weird emotions rolling through her and smiles at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m good. Great. For someone who just y’know,” she gestures at her body. “ _This_. And talking kinda hurts.”

She works her jaw, grimaces at the shooting pain, then shrugs.

“I’m sure I’ll be back to my usual babbling self in no time.” She gives him a thumbs up and a cheesy grin, which manages to coax a chuckle out of Diggle.

“I'm glad you’re here. It... it means a lot,” she adds, hoping he knows how grateful she is for his company.

“Hey now,” Diggle frowns at her. “Nowhere else I’d rather be. You’ve been through a lot.”

She snorts, falling back onto the mountain of pillows stacked behind her. “Yeah, tell me about it. How long was I been out anyway?” She plucks at her gown, running her fingers over the raised edges of the bandages she can feel wrapped around her midsection. “And what’s uh... the damage?”

Diggle lets out a pained grunt, and she tilts her head up to look at him. Deep lines are etched into his forehead, and his jaw twitches like he’s clenching his teeth really, really hard.  

“Just tell me, Dig. I’m a big girl.”

“He had you for close to five hours. We found you at dawn, checked you in here immediately.

You lost a lot of blood and they had to give you a transfusion. The bastard got you pretty good there. It’s deep.” He points to her stomach. “They had to take you into surgery, I don’t know the details but you’ll be on antibiotics for a while. Two cracked ribs. Dislocated shoulder - that’s going to be tender for a while.”

“Yikes,” she mutters over a sigh. “But nothing... no head injuries?”

Diggle offers her a small smile. “No, thankfully. Some cuts and scrapes, bruises. But your genius remains unaffected.”  

“Yay, lucky me.”

She leans back against the pillows, moving cautiously, feeling every bit of the damage Mike’s inflicted on her. She hasn’t quite wrapped her head around _everything_ yet, and she’s sure that she’s in some stage of shock. In a couple of hours, maybe once Diggle leaves - because he will have to eventually, she’ll let herself have a mini-gargantuan break down.

She could have _died._

Her gaze falls on Diggle, and to her relief he’s not looking at her with even an ounce of pity - God, she would have hated that. But he’s just sitting there, exuding calm and strength and it’s strange, but she really does consider him a friend now, despite the short time they’ve known each other. 

She's never been more grateful for it. 

He places a hand on her thigh and squeezes it gently, warmth and comfort rolling off him in waves.

“Is there anyone I can call?” he asks after a beat of silence. “You didn’t have an emergency contact listed and we didn’t know if you had family or...”

Felicity sighs, avoiding his gaze.  She clears her throat “No, it’s okay. I mean, you’re already here and Oliver... I mean, he knows, so there’s no one... and my mom’s in Vegas and -”

“I can call your -”

“ _No!_ ” She shakes her head vehemently, leaning forward and reaching out to trap the hand going for his cellphone. She bites back a groan of pain when she realises she's forgotten she shouldn't be stretching out that far. “For the love of all that is good, Dig, do  _not_ call my mother.”

“But Feli-”

“I said no.”

He seems perplexed, struggling to understand her reluctance but bless his soul, he just nods and sighs. “Okay. I won’t. There really isn’t anyone else I can call for you?”

She knows he means well, but his question only serves as a reminder that other than Diggle and Oliver, she really doesn’t have that many friends at all and she's hit by a pang of sadness. She withdraws her hand from Diggle's, folding it on her lap.  

Since moving to Starling, she’d been so focused on work and making sure Queen Consolidated understood her worth as an employee, that she hadn’t made time for things like maintaining or establishing friendships. She never saw the need to. Other than her mother, who she has a very tumultuous relationship with, and definitely does not want around her right now, she really has no one else. 

No one who cares that she nearly got kidnapped by her psychotic boss, or that she’s going to be laid up in the hospital for the near future. No one except the two men she literally just met a few weeks ago, men who moonlight as vigilantes, who don’t think twice about snapping a man’s neck or shooting an arrows through him.

Men who, as of almost twelve hours ago, she’d walked out on but had come to save her anyway.

 _Good_ men.

Though one of said men doesn’t seem to want to even want to see her so what does that say about _her_? Good enough to be saved, but not good enough for a follow up. Oliver Queen, perpetual enigma. 

She presses her lips together in an attempt to keep her roller-coaster emotions at bay.

“Really. Maybe just Oliver? If he’s...” she catches herself before she finishes the thought. Shakes her head. She won’t ask for him. Not when she’s not sure where they currently stand. And because she doesn't want him to visit just because he felt like he's obligated to. 

“You know what? Forget Oliver. You’re here. I’ll be okay.”

* * *

 

_Surgery went well. Just woke up and asking for you._

Oliver stares at Diggle’s text message for what seems like the hundredth time, fingers twitching as he tries to think of a suitable response. He hadn’t been big on text messages when he left on the boat and he’s come back to smiley faces that don’t mean what he thinks they mean, and so, _so_ many nonsensical abbreviations he’ll never understand.

He’s exhausted, physically and mentally from what feels like one of the longest nights in his entire night. He left a _very_ beat up and bloodied Mike McGrath bound and tied up at the S.C.P.D. with all the evidence he managed to dig up about his ties to the Triad taped to his forehead. Enough for a very long stint in Iron Heights, or at the very least, a very long and brutal trial.

The temptation to just kill him had been there, especially when Diggle told him the extent of Felicity’s injuries. He came tantalisingly close to shoving an arrow right through Mike's heart for daring to touch even a hair on her head and call it a day. 

But it was like she’d been in his head, urging him to leave less dead bodies behind, that there are other ways to deliver justice, that death isn’t always the answer.

And so after dropping Diggle and Felicity at the hospital, he didn’t end up killing Mike, against every bit of rage-fueled instinct telling him to.

For her.

Instead, he returned to the Foundry after leaving Mike at the S.C.P.D.’s doorstep. He’d fallen asleep on the exercise mats without intending to, not realising just how exhausted he was. But his nap lasted all of an hour before he woke up from a nightmare, Felicity’s name on the tip of his tongue, the image of her lying in a puddle of her blood forever burned into his brain.

It had been terrifying.

He contemplated going to the hospital then, but Diggle sent him a text message about her being in surgery so he stayed put. It was probably a good idea anyway, since he’d still been so frazzled, riding the last of the adrenaline high - he’s not sure how he’d have handled himself being confronted by the extent of her injuries that she’d suffered through at Mike’s hands.

But now that he’s wide awake and had time to process everything that had happened that night, Oliver is quickly realising that he’s... well.

He’s a mess.

He sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. He’s all tied up on the inside, unable to work out his feelings, unable to isolate and compartmentalise them the way he’s used to. She’s woven herself into the very intricate fabric of his life and doesn’t know how to untangle her from it. 

He’s not sure he even wants to. 

And on top of all that, he’s also being eaten up by the overwhelming guilt that she’d gotten hurt tonight because of him. Mike took her and _tortured_ her because of her involvement with him, because he wanted the Hood’s identity. Cut her open across her stomach because of her loyalty to the Hood. To _him._

If only he’d have more self-control, if he’d just put his foot down about not letting her join the team in the first place, if only he hadn’t used her USB hack thing, then she wouldn’t be in this position.

Everything that happened to her had been his fault.

It isn't fair to her. 

And no matter how drawn to her he is, no matter how much he loves the light she brings to his life, no matter how much he craves to hear her voice, she didn’t deserve to be sent to the hospital for it.

He glances at Diggle’s text again and sucks in a breath as he finally responds.

_That’s great. Please tell her I’m glad she’s okay._

Diggle’s reply is instantaneous.

_Tell her yourself._

A second text comes through immediately.

_In person, Oliver. She wants to see you._

He swallows, feeling caught out. He frowns at his phone, annoyed that Diggle knows him so well and that he's anticipated him pulling away. It's probably why he tacked on the last part of the message. Smart man. 

Because it almost works. It almost changes his mind, almost makes him bolt out of his seat and make his way straight to the hospital.

But Oliver stays rooted to the spot. Weighed down by the thought that he's brought darkness to one more person in his life that had made the tragic mistake of associating themselves with him. 

He’s torn. Split right down the middle between wanting to be right next to her to make sure she’s a hundred percent okay, and putting distance between them so he never has to drop her off at the hospital ever again.

He’s fighting a war with himself and he doesn’t know which side he wants to win.

His fingers hover over his phone for a long moment, but eventually he types out a reply, a compromise with himself, he thinks. However absurd that sounds. 

_Maybe tomorrow._

Neither side wins. Yet.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the Delicity helped ease the frustration that is Oliver's stunted emotional growth. 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	12. Into the Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our favourite people talk to each other. A lot.

Felicity spends a total of five days in Starling General post-kidnapping.

It’s overkill she thinks, but as it turns out, being admitted to the hospital with injuries as severe as hers meant that her doctors were less inclined to let her leave, despite her repeated assurances that she’ll be just fine.

Probably because she’s utterly horrible at lying and she is nowhere within the realm of being fine.

Her time at the hospital is spent in a state of semi-consciousness, unable to stay awake for more than a few hours at a time. Her doctors assure her that it’s perfectly normal, that her body is recovering from the trauma and needs all the rest it can get.

She slips in and out of awareness, but she doesn't miss the fact that every time she jolts awake, whether from being disturbed by her doctors, or from once again reliving the nightmare that had been her kidnapping, Diggle’s always there. She doesn't know if he goes home - she assumes he does when she falls asleep - but she’s grateful for every second he carves out of his day for her.

They don’t talk much. It’s as if he’s well aware of how much effort she’s putting into trying to be normaland she appreciates it. Because the moment she talks and lets herself think about what happened to her - what _could_ have happened to her - she’s going to have a break down and she’d really rather not go through _that_ in the hospital.

They also very resolutely don’t talk about giant elephant in the room that is Oliver Queen’s curious radio silence. He had sent her one text message, the morning she woke up at the hospital, but then it’s like he disappeared off the face of the Earth.

_Glad to hear you’re recovering well._

At the time, she’d taken it as a sign that they were okay again, their heated argument in the lair forgotten. She’d replied with a smiley face emoji, telling him to bring ice cream when he came to visit, but that message had gone unreplied and that was the last time she heard from him.

Five words, and then nothing else from the man who saved her life.

At first, she thought it was because Oliver was busy dealing with Mike, but when she found out that the S.C.P.D. had detained him on suspicion of criminal activity the very same night she’d been taken and was no longer a problem, she knew Oliver was avoiding her on purpose.

She knows Diggle’s tried to reach out to him because she hears the hushed conversations he has when he thinks she’s still sleeping. But evidently nothing changes Oliver’s mind because he never does visit her.

It leaves her feeling confused, hollow, and so _alone._

But she doesn’t want to give the doctors more reasons to prevent her from being discharged, so she pretends she’s perfectly _fine_ and concentrates on everything else except him. If he doesn’t care, then she won’t either.

She smiles through all the routine check ups, listens diligently to her doctors and plasters on a cheerful smile whenever Diggle pops in, just to complete the charade. If he notices anything amiss, he doesn’t mention it.

After the many long days of being relentlessly poked and prodded by her doctors, manhandled as they changed her dressings and being forced to undergo some physical therapy for her shoulder, she’s finally been given the all clear to go home.

“Thanks for coming to get me, Diggle,” she chirps as she packs up her meager belongings - a few books and a bag of clothing that Diggle had brought in for her. “I really appreciate it.”

“Anything for you, Felicity. You know that,” he replies sincerely. They walk out of her room and he snatches her bag out of her hands with a pointed look. She only protests a little because, okay, she may have told him to bring her _a lot_ of books, her shoulder’s still a little tender and who was she to deny Diggle if he wants to be chivalrous?

“I do know, Dig. You’re the best. And not just because you brought me all my stuff and helped me with physical therapy and kept me from being bored out of my mind. You’re just like, in general, the best.”

They arrive at his car and Diggle opens the passenger side door for her, ever the gentleman. A stray thought flits through her mind as she slides into the very spacious front seat and she finally has the courage to ask him the question that’s been plaguing her mind the moment she woke up.  

“Hey, Dig?”

“Yeah?”

He shuts her door and walks over to the driver’s side, grinning widely at her when he settles into his seat. Clearly, she isn’t the only one feeling happy about leaving the hospital.

“Um, not that I’m complaining, but how are you here right now?”

Diggle chuckles as he buckles his seat belt and turns the key in the ignition. “What are you talking about? How many pain pills did you take this morning? I’ve been with you for hours.”

“I took just enough, thank you very much,” she says as she rolls her eyes. “I mean, don’t you have to work? You’ve been around so much the last few days, and while I really love that, and don’t get me wrong, you’re great company... But shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, bodyguarding Oliver or something?”

 _Wow._ Just saying his name hurts. A stomach-dropping, gut-clenching, soul-withering kind of hurt. Definitely did _not_ expect that.

Her meds are doing an excellent job numbing her physical wounds, but _this_? Nothing she’s been prescribed can soothe this all-encompassing sadness at the fact that he can’t even be bothered to visit her.

For five entire days.

“Uh, well,” Diggle clears his throat, as if he knows what’s going through her head and is trying to figure out the best way not to make things worse. “Oliver can handle himself for a couple of days. Figured you needed my company more than he does, you know?”

“He didn’t _make_ you stay with me, did he?” Felicity mutters with a twist of her lips. Indignance rolls off her in waves at the thought. She picks at the hem of her sweater and looks out the side window, not wanting to see the confirmation on Diggle’s face if it’s true.

She doesn't think she can bear the thought of yet another person that she trusts being nothing but a complete phony. That maybe Diggle’s only there because Oliver can’t find it in himself to spare a few minutes in his day for her, so he sent his bodyguard in his stead.

“I guess he’s your boss so he _can_ , but it’s not like he forced you, right? Because -”

He cuts her off. “Hey, don’t even think for a second that he _made_ me do this. Oliver may be an idiot, but I assure you that I’m not. I _want_ to be here for you, Felicity.”

That knowledge does wonders for her frayed psyche. She’s holding on to so many emotions, bottled them up and set aside throughout her stay at the hospital that one more blow would have sent her careening right off the edge into a full blown meltdown.

She reaches out and squeezes Diggle’s arm with gratitude and relief. At least she has _one_ man she can count on in her life.

They spend rest of the drive in companionable silence, until Diggle pulls his car to stop a few blocks away from her apartment. She tilts her head at blinks at him in confusion.

He grins at her and she suspects he’s up to something. He’s always been able to read her - it’s not hard, she’s an open book and she wears her heart on her sleeve - he’s probably sensed her less than cheerful mood and is trying to get her out of her funk.

“I know you want to go home, but I for one, am really feeling like a Big Belly Burger right now. You think you’re up for having some real food?”

She lets out a squeal of delight and doesn’t even wait for him to get the door for her. She shoves all thoughts of Oliver aside and loops her arms through Diggle’s once he exits the car and comes to her side.

She lets out a low whistle. “Busting me out of the hospital _and_ taking me to Big Belly? You really _are_ the best.”

He just shakes his head, pleased with himself and amused by her excitement. “Yeah, well, you’re not so bad yourself, Felicity. Lets just go in, okay? I’m starving.”

* * *

 

She’s five episodes into some trashy reality show that she’s not paying any attention to when a series of loud knocks echo through her apartment, startling her. The bowl of popcorn she’s balanced on her lap tips precariously when she jerks at the noise and her hand shoots out to catch it before it falls over.

Big mistake.

The sudden movement makes her stretch too far, and she lets out a hiss of pain, tipping the bowl over anyway. Great. There’s popcorn everywhere now, and how is she supposed to clean any of it when she can’t even sit without feeling like her body is about to split in half?

Whoever it is at her door knocks again, louder still, and she huffs, carefully side-stepping the mess on her floor. She glances at her phone, realises it’s right about the time her fresh out of college neighbour James usually saunters home drunk after having lost his keys and has to ask her for the set he gave her for emergencies.

“Honestly,” she grumps as she shuffles to her door. Her hands curl around the door knob and she raises her voice as she pulls it open. “It’s _eleven_ , James. I’m really starting to regret holding on to your - _oh_.”

The words catch in her throat, and she makes a surprised, weird, strangled noise she’s not proud of.

Because it isn’t James at her door.

It’s _Oliver_.

Her heart stutters at the sight of him, scruffy looking and disheveled. His hair’s a mess and his beard is thicker than what she’s used to, as if he’s forgone shaving for a few days.

He’s in a long sleeved black T-shirt, one she recognises as the kind he wears under the Hood when he goes out patrolling at night. The same one that stretches across his broad chest, clinging on to every sculpted muscle because he needs it to be skin tight so it doesn't hinder his movement. Or so he told her once.

She’s pretty sure he just wears it for the sole reason of torturing her and tonight is no different.

“Oliver.” His name comes out in a snarl, around a heavy sigh as she tears her eyes away from his chest. “What are you doing here?”

She’s spent so many days wondering about him, so many days being angry and upset with him, convinced that he’s completely done with her and just as she’s starting to make her peace with it, he just blows back into her life, upending it without a care in the world. 

It’s not _fair._

“Hi. I needed... I just...” He exhales and his Adam's Apple bobs with uncertainty as he tries to find the right words to say.

In the end, he settles for a simple “How are you?”

Felicity glares at him. Is he being serious right now? She steps out from behind her door, putting herself between him and the slight gap that leads into her apartment.  

“You’d know how I am if you bothered to visit me even once at the hospital.”

She doesn’t even care when he flinches at the acid dripping from her words. He takes a small step back and has the decency to look properly chastised.

Good.

“I’m...” He pauses and sighs. He looks down at his feet and she finds it strangely satisfying to see him this uncomfortable.

When he looks back up at her, it’s with an unreadable expression on his face. She thinks it might be desperation, maybe a hint of an apology, but she’s not one to assume. His eyes are a dark shade of blue - darker than what she remembers and it looks like he’s fighting some silent battle with himself from the way he fidgets, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Can we... I... come inside?” he finally manages to ask. He holds up a shopping bag that Felicity hadn’t noticed before now and shakes it gently. “I brought ice cream like you wanted.”

“Oh, so your phone _does_ work,” she says coolly arching an eyebrow, tucking her arms around her midsection like an additional layer of armor. Fortifying herself against him.

Yeah, she’s totally _owning_ this conversation and she’s taking a lot of pleasure seeing how her indifference is making him squirm.

“I... Yeah. I deserved that.” Then he straightens his back, squares his shoulders and let’s out a long breath. “But can we talk, please, Felicity?”

And there it is again, the way he says her name like it’s his salvation. He drags the syllables out like he’s savoring them because he doesn’t deserve to speak her name.

It does a good job of chipping away at the protective shell she’s formed around her heart. But he’s pleading with her in a voice she doesn’t recognise, soft and apologetic, clawing at her in desperation. It softens her.

She makes him suffer for a moment longer, but eventually, she unfolds her arms and rolls her eyes.

“What flavour?” she asks, tipping her chin towards the bag.

The corners of Oliver’s mouth curve upwards, no doubt spurred on by the small spark of hope she’s offering him. “Mint chip, of course.”

“Good answer,” she says, taking the bag from him before she turns around and walks into her apartment without another word. She leaves the door open in an unspoken invitation, and a second later hears him follow her in.

She goes straight to her kitchen without looking back, but she hears him shutting her door and locking it before following closely behind her.

She gets to the kitchen island and turns around, about to ask if he’s having any of the dessert. But Oliver, not expecting the abrupt stop, runs into her and she has to fling her arms out to stop him from barreling straight into her. The bag with the ice cream falls from her hands, skittering across the floor. 

“Shit, Oliver!” she hisses. The sudden move sets her entire midsection aflame, stitches pulling, cracked ribs throbbing. Her body spasms and it makes her see white. Purely on instinct, she clutches onto both of Oliver’s forearms, teeth clenched as she rides out the pain.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Oliver’s repeating softly, fingers curled around her elbows, steadying her. He stands stock still, letting her lean on him as she catches her breath.

His voice is gruff with emotion. “Felicity, what can I do? Honey, I’m so sorry.”

_Honey?_

Felicity looks up at him in bewilderment, still holding onto his arms, but whatever she'd been planning to say about the moniker dies on her lips once she registers the look he’s giving her, It's one she’s never seen on him before.

Wide eyed, nostrils flared, mouth pressed in a thin line, his face twisted with unbridled fear. He’s _terrified._

His grip around her elbows tighten even as his eyes drift from her face down to her body, like he’s trying to assess the damage he’s done to her even though none of it is visible through her shirt.

“Did I... Did you... I didn’t mean to walk into you, should have been looking...”

He’s mumbling, babbling even. If she wasn’t trying so hard to stay upright, she’d probably think he’s being cute. Instead, she just focuses on keeping her breathing even, deep breaths as she works through it.

After a few minutes, she tugs her hands out of his grip gently, her fingers running along his forearms before dropping to her sides to rub her palms against her pajama pants. His proximity is making her nervous and she needs to put some distance between them so her brain stops short-circuiting every time he so much as blinks at her.     

“It’s fine,” she lies through her teeth, but she can’t hide the slight hitch in her voice as another jolt pain streaks through her. She slides out past Oliver, pointedly ignoring how her chest brushes his as she moves, walking gingerly to the pile of medication on the other side of the counter.  “Time for more pills, I guess.”

“How bad is it?” he asks as he tracks her movement like he’s afraid she’s going to crumble to pieces the moment he takes his eyes away from her. He clenches his fists and she thinks he might be itching to hit something, or shoot something, as the case may be. But he doesn’t follow her, accurately sensing her need for some personal space.

“You’d know if you visited me,” she repeats under her breath as she dry swallows a couple of painkillers.

Okay, yeah, a little harsh, but she's so frazzled and still harbouring some bitterness over his lack of contact she doesn't care. And maybe she’s being petty, but she’s past being bothered about it. The constant aching all over makes her grumpy and now that she’s gotten over the shock of seeing him at her doorstep, she’s finding that she’s not in a very forgiving mood after all. Ice cream or no ice cream.

It agonises her that he’s gotten so deep under her skin that his mere presence is sending her spinning (although, she concedes it might be her medication this time, but still). The man saved her life, but couldn’t spare the time to visit her the entire time she was in the hospital, and then appears at her doorstep looking like a sad puppy seeking forgiveness.

The confusion is rattling her and being confused isn’t something Felicity is used to. She wants to know what he’s thinking. Wants to pull him apart, one sinewy muscle at a time, and dig under his carefully guarded exterior to get to the bottom of the mystery that is Oliver Queen.

Because she _hates_ mysteries.

“Felicity... I wanted to.”

She almost doesn’t hear him, and she thinks she might have imagined his quiet declaration if not for the way Oliver sighs in defeat and licks his lips like he’s preparing to give her some big speech.

It’s unnerving.  

He leans casually over the counter, elbows bent, fingers laced together. He doesn’t meet her eyes, instead he bows his head, staring at the smooth surface of her countertop.

“I wanted to,” he repeats. “ _So much_ , Felicity. Please, believe me.”

The admission floors her.

One, because she’s never, ever heard Oliver sound the way he does now. Like he's completely defeated, guilt-ridden and absolutely drowning in desperation. She can’t see his face, but tension rolls off his shoulders in waves, muscles pulled taut under his shirt, and she swears he’s trembling with the effort of maintaining his composure.

And two, because if he’s telling the truth, then he’s effectively turned everything she thought about him over the last five days on it’s head. Her resolve not to let him off the hook so easily is wavering, slowly being replaced by the need to know why.

Why he saved her, then _left_ her.  

“So why didn’t you?”

The question comes out unbidden, more of a stray thought than anything, but it does make Oliver lift his head and she finally realises that he’s struggling, physically struggling, to keep himself together. The angles of his face look like they’re cut from stone, jaw twitching as he grinds his teeth. 

“Felicity...”

“Tell me,” she demands softly, crossing her arms over her stomach in a subconscious attempt to protect herself. She doesn’t realise she’s doing it until her forearms press against her bandage a little too hard causing her wound to sting a little. “Tell me why, or leave now.”

The threat of being kicked out makes him talk. “I... was scared.”

Felicity exhales. _Scared?_ What in the- 

“Scared of what?” she prompts in disbelief. “Of _me?_ ”

“No, of _me_ ,” Oliver growls. He finally looks up, straightens his posture and his eyes are _blazing._

_Passionate._

“Of the fact that I couldn’t get the picture of you bleeding out in my arms out of my head. Of how I felt thinking that you might not make it. The thought of not having you... Felicity, you don’t know how much I wanted to see you to make sure you were alive. With my own two eyes. But I was _scared_.”

A dam within him has broken and nothing is preventing the words that are tumbling out of his mouth, like a cascade of confessions nipping at the edges of her soul seeking absolution.

He leaves his position at the other end of the counter, and with every sentence he inches closer to her. Like he needs her close for this. She just watches him, not daring to say a word, afraid that if she does, this strange spell (because she has no other explanation for this) might break and he’ll revert to being the subdued, expressionless Oliver Queen she’s more used to.

“When we realised you were missing, it felt like a part of me went with you,” he breathes out. “It terrified me. Because I barely know you, Felicity. You haven’t been part of this for as long as Dig and I have, it’s only been a few weeks, but losing you... it doesn’t make sense _,_ but losing you... it makes me _crazy_.”

Felicity’s brain is short-circuiting. Full on malfunctioning, unable to really grasp what he's saying. 

Never has she heard Oliver talk this way, with so much conviction, the truth bleeding from him with every sentence that spills from his mouth. And still he ploughs on.

“If I... I thought if I came to the hospital you would...”

He’s barely inches from her now. She feels the warm puffs of air caressing her skin like gossamer silk as he exhales. His eyes flutter shut, and she thinks that he’s probably summoning the last of his strength for whatever he wants to say next.

“At first, I didn’t visit because I thought I was protecting you. That if I cut off all ties with you, this will never happen again. I’d never have to see you hurt again.”

The argument is on the tip of her tongue, the same age-old one about _her choices,_ and _her decisions_ , but Oliver shakes his head and his hand reaches out to touch her forearm gently, indicating he’s not done. She nods sharply and he sucks in another breath before he continues.

“That was at first. When I could still see your blood on my hands every time I closed my eyes. But then... but then, _after_ , I realised that if I visited - there might be a chance you’d tell me you were done with me. Us. The Hood. Because you... you didn’t sign up for this. Any of this.” He tightens his hold on her arm, fingers traveling down so he can twine his fingers around hers like he needs to feel more of her. Tangled with her.  

“I don't know if I'm making sense, I don't think I am. But I was being selfish. I didn’t want you to realise that the reason you got hurt was because of me and my crusade, and give you the chance to leave m- _us._ So... so I stayed away.”

Is she alive? She’s sure she’s not. The air’s been sucked out of her lungs, every word he’s saying slamming into her like a battering ram against her heart.

“You got hurt because of me and I didn’t want to give you the chance to tell me you’re done with me because of it. I was being _selfish_ , Felicity.”

She can’t think. Not about his words, his ragged breathing, not about the fact that his face is mere inches from her own, his hands holding onto hers like he needs her for support.

What the fuck is _happening_?

“Oliver,” she gulps, unable to take her eyes off his lips, the slight frown of doubt that tells her maybe he’s just as confused by what’s transpiring between them as she is.

He interrupts her thoughts by tugging her hands apart, letting them fall to her sides. And then he reaches for the hem of her shirt and he lifts it slowly. His eyes dart up to hers then, so intense, blue, shining with some silent promise, and he tilts his head like he’s asking for permission to continue.

She thinks that maybe she should stop him, but she’s still reeling, holding her breath because it feels like any sudden movements might burst this strange bubble they’re in, and she really, really doesn't want that to happen. She nods.

Go ahead.  

With one hand, he holds her shirt up just under her breasts, revealing the gauze wrapped tight around her wound. His other hand trips over the creases in her bandages, his gaze never leaving hers like he’s afraid she’s going to move from him the moment he breaks eye contact with her.

Once he’s done exploring, he moves his palm around and his hand flattens against her back, keeping her there, a hair’s breadth away from him.

“Felicity, I’m so sorry I hurt you.” The crack in his voice is her undoing.

It completely tears her to shreds, and if her resolve hadn’t already been completely broken before, it definitely is now.

He’s decimated the wall she’s carefully constructed around her heart. The anguish bleeds from him, she senses it in the way he’s holding her so reverently, his thumbs caressing the edges of her bandages where cloth meets skin.

“This is my fault. I did this,” he whispers hoarsely. His chest is heaving like it’s taking everything out of him to stand there with her, like he’s trying his hardest not to close the distance between them like she knows he wants to.

“I came tonight because I didn’t want to be selfish anymore. Because if you want to be done, then it’s your choice not mine. And I... I want you to know that I understand. That it’s your decision, and if it’s -”  

“Oliver, I’d never leave you.”

The confession rips through her like lightning, and even though she’s never truly contemplated it, she knows it’s true. Her eyes flick up to meet his, and it’s wide open, bright blue, shocked.

_“Felicity.”_

He whispers her name and it floats between them like a prayer. Her hands slide up his shirt on their own accord, glides over the smooth cloth that doesn’t do anything to hide the muscles she’s gotten to know so well. She stops at his collarbone, fingers resting there, seeking warmth. Comfort.

He’s staring at her, her lips, her eyes. His heart is pounding, she can feel every beat reverberating through her skin, and it’s clear he’s just as affected by _this,_ whatever this is, as she is. it makes her feel bold.

Confident.

She inches up on her toes at the same time as he lowers his head to hers.

And she kisses him.

* * *

 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't @ me. 
> 
> But also, @ me if you want. 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	13. Talking's Overrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our two lovable idiots become less idiotic around each other.

Soft.

She has _unbelievably_ soft lips. It’s the only thing he thinks of when she presses into him, palms warm against his chest, ghosting her lips over his, intimate and slow.

He kisses her back, because how can he _not_ , but he takes his cue from her, gliding his lips over hers in the barest of touches. His right hand curves around her waist on instinct, keeping her close. His other hand cups the side of her face, the pads of his fingers sliding over her smooth skin.

She nuzzles her cheek into his palm, like she’s seeking more his touch even as she deepens the kiss, pulling his bottom lip between her teeth. Her tongue darts out for a split second, as if she's testing the waters, and then she licks him; actually pushes up on her tiptoes and _licks_ the corner of his mouth playfully.

“C’mon, Oliver, you can do better than that,” she sighs, eyes shut, a teasing smile on her face.

Her voice stirs something in him, unearthing feelings that he’s been trying to keep suppressed since the day he met her. There’s a ringing in his ears, primal and raw, and he feels like very last shred of control that he’s clinging on to is slowly slipping through his fingers.

“Felicity,” he whispers, his lips brushing over hers as he speaks, the contact sending a pleasant tingle down his spine. ‘Felicity, _please_.”

He’s not sure what he’s begging her for, and he doesn’t care because the next thing he knows, she’s kissing him again. A messy, open-mouthed, teeth clashing type of kiss that sends him spiralling into an uncontrollable black hole of want.

And she tastes _amazing_. Like popcorn and vanilla and Felicity, and he can’t get enough. He groans, slides his hand around to her back and pulls her closer still, sweeping his tongue into her mouth so he can taste more. Drink more. Savour more.

The change of pace has him surrendering himself to her as he sinks into the kiss. He lets her take the lead, happy to suck and nip whatever she offers up to him. When she slips her tongue into his mouth, he curls his around hers, and she lets out the dirtiest little whimper he’s ever heard in his life. A surge of arousal travels through him, seeping into his veins, and it makes him feel alive. Like lightning is coursing through him.

He wants to memorise everything about her, how she tastes, how she sounds, gasping and moaning breathlessly into his ear. He wants to remember how she feels in his arms, warm and soft, her breasts pressed against his chest so deliciously he can’t tell where he ends and she begins.

Her hands have slid up from his chest so they're spread wide over his cheeks, holding him in place, making sure he doesn't pull away, as if he’s not already so completely gone for her. There’s no way he’s going anywhere tonight. She scratches the day old stubble along his jaw, nails scraping deliciously back and forth, sending shockwave after shockwave of bliss through his entire system.

He’s never shaving. Ever. Again.

Felicity alternates between kissing him and panting heavily in his ear, all the while pressing her hips against his rhythmically - they fit so perfectly together, he thinks absentmindedly - driving him crazy as his traitorous brain conjures up images of her writhing under him, among his sheets, making the same noises -

“God, _Felicity_.” He sounds ridiculous, hoarse and strangled, like he’s reverted to being a teenager again, without even a bit of self-control. He tears his lips from hers in an effort to calm his stuttering heart. He rests his forehead against hers, drawing in slow, even breaths, hands moving down to bracket her waist, needing her to steady himself.

He can’t recall even one of the hundreds of reasons he’s been reciting to himself since he’s met her why this is a bad idea. He’s sure they were stupid reasons because how can something that feels _this good_ be bad anyway?

He twists the material of her shirt in his hands, coercing her backwards towards her refrigerator. She moves willingly with him as she drags her lips down his neck, sucking on his pulse point so eagerly Oliver thinks his knees might just give out beneath him.

Yeah, this is a great idea. _Best_ idea.

God.

She’s ruining him.

Every nerve in his body is short-circuiting. He’s burning up from the inside out, his heart pounding so wildly he’s sure she can feel every heavy beat as she peppers sweet little kisses down his neck.

They make it to her refrigerator, bumping into it a little less gracefully than he’d like. He apologises by dipping his head into the hollow in her collarbone, suckling on the spot where her neck meets her shoulders and - okay, yeah, she _really_ likes that. A lot.

He’s so filing that away for later.

Her hands are everywhere. _She’s_ everywhere. Her scent is all around him and she's clawing at his back, his sides, fingers digging into his abs like she can’t decide how she wants to hold him. She nudges his cheek with her nose and he looks up from where he’s busy worrying a hickey on her neck, eyebrows arched.

Her answer is to kiss him again, slanting against his lips in a now-familiar move, biting down on his bottom lip, suckling it before soothing it with her tongue.

Why the hell had he waited so long for this? He’s such an idiot. He’s no stranger to women of course, but this - this all encompassing feeling of need and want, it’s a whole new experience.

Maybe it’s because for the first time in a very long time, he’s with someone who knows the real him, who knows him as Oliver _and_ the Hood and for some unfathomable reason is still here. Someone who has every right to dismiss him for being a complete moron, but has decided to give him another chance anyway.

Someone remarkable.

_“Oliver I’d never leave you.”_

Her words from earlier in the night echo in his head again and it makes his heart bloom. He wraps his hands around her, wants to lift her because he really needs to feel her hug her legs around him and press his -

“Oliver! Ah, crap!”

The sharp cry cuts through the haze of lust immediately and he stumbles backwards, hands falling from her like they’ve been burned. He blinks dumbly and then to his horror he realises what else he’s forgotten in his desperate need for her.

That she’s _hurt_.

“Fuck, Felicity, I’m so sorry,” he rasps.

“No, no, I’m okay.” She casts her eyes down to her stomach, then back up at him sheepishly. “Just ah. Damn. I’m bleeding.”

He watches as she lifts her shirt up slowly, twitching involuntarily when he sees the stain of red spreading across her bandages.

“I think we um, pulled my stitches,” Felicity murmurs, touching the spot of red gingerly. “But it only hurts a little bit.”

“I’m so sor-”

“Oliver if you say you’re sorry again I’m going to kick you,” she snaps. But then she smiles, and it takes away the bite in her words. She sighs. “This is not your fault. We just got... a little carried away is all.”

Oliver huffs. Yeah, carried away. That’s one way of putting it. He rubs his hands over his face, and sucks in a deep breath.

This is not how he thought his visit would go at all. He'd come over to apologise for being a complete asshole, grovel at her feet a little, maybe. Share some ice cream with her, watch a movie.

Making out with her like the world is about to end had definitely not been on the agenda for tonight and despite knowing she's just been released from the hospital, he’d been about ready to take her against the refrigerator if she hadn’t cried out in pain.

God, he’s an ass.

The guilt must show on his face, because Felicity takes a step towards him and wraps her fingers around his left bicep, squeezing once in reassurance.

“Hey, I kinda lost it too.” Felicity says around a laugh. “So don’t beat yourself up over it. Look, it’s really not that bad.”

She twines her other hand with his and guides it under her shirt. His breath catches in his throat and a very undignified half-grunt, half-squeak escapes from between his lips when his fingers brush over her warm skin just beneath the bandage wrapped around her abdomen.

“Felicity, what are you doing?”

“Letting you see that I’m really okay,” she answers easily, like she doesn’t know that he’s about to spontaneously combust. Or, judging by the infuriating smirk on her face, she does, and she just likes playing with fire.  
  
“Just look, Oliver.”

She uses her other hand to lift the hem of her shirt up, an eyebrow quirked as she presses their still entwined hands over her stomach, rubbing circles with her thumb over the back of his hand.

Oh, yeah. She definitely knows what she’s doing to him.

He drops his head, lowering his gaze to their hands resting on her stomach. She’s right, it doesn’t look too bad even though the sight of her blood is making him feel just a little bit horrible on the inside.

He runs his hand along the bandage just to make sure, caressing the edge where the cloth meets skin. Goosebumps appear on her skin as he does so and he’s sure she might even have shivered at the contact. She squirms away from his wandering fingers and lets her shirt fall back down.

He tilts his head at her knowingly, but all she does is roll her eyes at him. “Yeah, yeah, shut up.”

“I did not say a thing,” Oliver responds with amusement, though he does take comfort in knowing that she’s just as affected by all of this as he is.

“You were not saying it very loudly,” she grumbles.

He chuckles at that, glad that she’s not overly concerned by the fact that her wound has reopened. He straightens and takes a step back, satisfied that she’s telling the truth and is in no immediate danger of bleeding out.

“I just need to change my bandages,” Felicity says, walking past him as she pulls open some drawers presumably to look for what she needs.

He provides her with a non-commital grunt, tracking her movements as she finds the first aid box and sets it on top of the counter. She busies herself setting everything up and he takes the time to try and regain some semblance of the control that he used to have before he was given the gift of tasting her. Feeling her.

_Ugh._

He’s _Oliver Queen_ , Starling’s resident vigilante who can shoot bullseye after bullseye with his eyes shut, can single-handedly take down armed men like toy soldiers. But here he is fidgeting in Felicity’s kitchen, off-kilter, distracted by the phantom feeling of her lips slowly sliding over his and her body undulating against his like it just had been mere minutes ago.

Arousal stirs in him again and his eyes flutter shut.

He’s better than this. Better than the Ollie of old who went through women like he goes through arrows on a busy night. Felicity deserves more than being groped hard and fast against her kitchen appliances. He groans at the imagery.

He’s dragged out of his thoughts by Felicity clearing her throat and he opens his eyes to look at her.

She holds up a pair of scissors and a roll of bandages, bottom lip pulled in between her teeth, eyes drifting down to his crotch then back up to his face like she knows exactly where his mind has just gone.

“So... You wanna help change my dressing?”

Oh God.

He’s not going to survive the night.

* * *

 

 

What had she been _thinking_?

She wasn’t, that’s what. Because if she had been, she would have realised asking Oliver to help change her bandages was, hands down, the stupidest thing she could have done. Some genius she is. What good is her ridiculously high I.Q. when it doesn’t help her make good decisions in life?

Oh, lord.

“Can you stay still please?”

Felicity whines pitifully, because no? How can she, when she’s sitting on top of her kitchen counter with _Oliver Fucking Queen_ standing between her legs, his head a hair’s breadth away from her stomach as he works to re-wrap her bandages around her midsection.

She’s in a really thin sports bra, having taken off her shirt so he can help her with her bandages. Right, _help_ , but it’s turning out to be more like _completely taking over_ the job from her because he’d made the most insufferable noise when she attempted to do it herself.

So now he’s nestled between her thighs, his solid bulk trapped there, bowed over her half-naked, wounded torso, tending to her cut with the gentlest of touches. She’s hot, so hot all over, blushing from her chest up, but she can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed by it.

Her knuckles are turning white from gripping the edge of the counter in an effort not to move, but clearly it’s not even good enough for him because he’s now glaring at her, a warm hand on her thigh, the other on the strip of cloth he’s wrapping around her.

“Stop fidgeting,” he repeats, but his voice is a lot lower than usual, gruff and breathless. “I’m almost done.”

Oh, thank God.

She closes her eyes and sucks in a breath.

He smells amazing; of leather (of course) and pine trees and just a hint of sweat. She wonders if she can bottle it up somehow, turn it into some sort of cologne? Making cologne’s is kind of like science, and science is kind of her thing, so that means it’s probably possible. And then she might be able to have this scent, like all the time.

“You want to bottle my scent?”

Felicity blinks, and her field of vision is suddenly filled with his grinning face, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

She groans. “Ah, frack.”

But then she thinks about it and shrugs. She’s already had her tongue down his throat, what’s a little lack of filter between them?

She leans in to kiss him, mostly because she’s trying to take Oliver’s mind off of her gaffe, but also because she _can_ now, and he responds eagerly. Heat pools between her legs, tendrils of flame lighting up from deep in her gut all over again, slowly stoking the embers of desire within her.

Oliver pulls away just before it gets out of hand and she loses herself in him again. He growls beneath his breath, equally frusrated.

“I have to finish this.” He taps her waist then tugs gently at the bandage he’s wrapped tightly around her. He fixes her with a mock stern glare. “Don’t distract me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Behaving. I promise.”

He finishes up eventually, and much to her disappointment, after she thanks him, he takes several steps away from her and out of her immediate vicinity.

“So, um.” He clears his throat, rubbing his palms together. “I think - I guess - we should talk about this?”

He looks adorably uncomfortable, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. It’s cute. The big bad Hood, tongue-tied and uncertain around her, all because they made out a little.

Okay, _a lot_.

She pulls her pajama top back on and hops off the counter. She cocks her head to the side, exhales and nods. “Yeah, yeah we should talk.”

Because they do really need to, that much is clear. As much as she’s a big fan of the kissing and groping, they’re both just a little off-centre at the moment and she knows they have to at least get back on the same page. At the very least, clear up where they stand in terms of her continuing involvement with the Hood. 

Which, in his defense, is what Oliver had come over to do in the first place, bearing gifts - _wait._

“Oh!” she exclaims all of a sudden. Her eyes dart down to the ground, frantically searching until she finds what she’s looking for. She crouches down and grabs the bag with the ice cream he brought over what feels like hours ago and pulls the tub out.

“Felicity, what’s wrong?”

She ignores him with a wave of a hand. “No, no, no, no.”

Her fingers rip open the lid and relief floods through her when she realises that the dessert can still be salvaged. She holds the tub in her hands and turns around to face Oliver, tilting it so he can see the still almost-solid mint chip goodness inside.

“I almost forgot you brought a peace offering!”

“Yeah, well Diggle said I wouldn’t have half a chance without it.”

“Smart man, that Dig,” she murmurs, grabbing a spoon and digging into it. She moans as the delicious, smooth, creamy, confectionery hits her tongue, _so_ , so glad that the ice-cream survived. She closes her eyes to concentrate on the burst of flavour in her mouth.

“Can we talk over dessert? I’ll share.”

Oliver doesn’t respond immediately and she’s perfectly fine with that because that’s his loss and it means she has more, so whatever. She’s in the middle of another spoonful of heaven, imagining how much better it would be if she had some sprinkles or even some chocolate sauce, when Oliver clears his throat and her eyes fly open.

He’s... right in front of her. Crowding her back against her counter, staring down at her lips, a hand feathering up the side of her neck. There’s an air of danger about him, almost predatory, and she lets out an almost silent gasp of surprise when his hand moves up from her neck to fiddle with her industrial piercing.

That shouldn’t feel so erotic. It really shouldn’t. But somehow everything he’s doing is turning her into a puddle of lust and she doesn't know how to stop it.

Satisfied that he now has her full attention, he curls his fingers around her hand still holding her spoon up and guides it into his mouth. He makes a production out of it, making a point to slide his tongue over the metal agonizingly slowly, locking his eyes on hers.

Purposefully.

Yeah, _okay_.

Fuck talking.

Talking’s overrated.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stole a line from Castle ;) Hope you enjoyed this filler chapter of them just mashing faces together! 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


	14. 320

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating has been upped for this chapter. Be warned. 
> 
> Feel free to skip this chapter if sex isn't your thing. I'm not going to pretend this is anything other than gratuitous PWP.

She can’t believe this.

Leave the boys alone for a few days, and _this_ is what she comes back to?

Three drive failures, way too many frayed wires and a hole in her CPU housing that looks suspiciously like it was made by someone wrenching an arrowhead out of it. And she hasn’t even checked the server arrays yet.

“Jerks,” she mutters, running her hands over the monitors, watching them flare to life when she flicks the power button on. At least _some_ things are still working.

She notices that her search program is running and figures Oliver and Diggle are chasing down that lead, since she’s been in here for a whole ten minutes and neither one of them have appeared to yell at her yet.

Because she’s technically still banned from the lair - Oliver’s words, not hers - until she’s fully recovered. Which, in her very not professional opinion, she is. She’s not in that much pain anymore, and the doctors had pulled her stitches out this morning.

Besides, she’s been benched for three whole days, and there’s only so much Netflix a girl can chew through before needing a different kind of mental stimulation.

She settles into her chair and growls when she realises someone’s messed with that too, made it higher so her feet dangle down the edge, making her feel like a child. She readjusts it, making a mental note to take this up with Oliver when he gets back - because this is _so_ Oliver’s doing, Dig wouldn’t dare touch her chair - and flexes her fingers over her keyboard.

She’s missed this.

Her _babies_.

“What did the mean vigilantes do to you?” she mutters as she starts running her diagnostic tests. “Besides crash three hard drives and shoot arrows at you, of course. You’d think they’d be more careful wouldn’t you? Since all of this is meant to be _helping_ them. Ugh.”

Tapping her feet against the legs of he chair, she lets her mind wander as she waits for the test results to come back.

Naturally, her thoughts land on Oliver. Not surprising really, since she’s always thinking about him in one way or another. Plus, she’s currently surrounded by all things Hood related, entrenched in his domain, but it’s especially not surprising _now_ , because of this strange, fledgling thing they’ve embarked on.

It’s only been three days, so she’s not ready to call it a _relationship_ yet. But being around him is nice and comfortable and conversation flows easily between them - that is, whenever they’re not busy making out like teenagers.

“ _Felicity!?_ ”

She squeals in surprise, startled, jerking in her seat at the booming voice echoing through the lair. Swiveling around, she sees Oliver marching down the stairs, a murderous look on his face.

She swallows, and then plasters a grin on her face, as if she doesn’t notice the angry twitch in his jaw. “Hey! You’re back! Had a good night? I mean, you’re here and not bleeding out, or dead, so that’s always good, right? I, for one, think it’s very good.”

“Don’t even...” Oliver growls at her as he approaches her work station. He folds his arms and narrows his eyes at her pointedly. “Don’t be cute with me.”

“I’m not _trying_ to be cute, I’m always cute,” she grins, but he doesn't bite. “Okay, looks like we’re dealing with grumpy Oliver today. But I really am genuinely pleased that you’re not dead since you know, you killed the rest of my equipment in here. Where’s Diggle?”

“Went home. He’s still not happy with me,” Oliver answers curtly, still glaring daggers at her, simmering quietly in his misplaced anger. And also completely bypassing her comment about breaking her things.

It’s funny, she thinks, because here he is, still dressed as the Hood, his bow strapped to his back, a quiver full of very sharp, lethal, arrows, obviously very displeased with her, but she’s not even the least bit intimidated by him. Instead, she’s really, really...

Turned on.

Like, blood roaring in her ears, chest pounding, heat burning low in her belly kind of turned on because, yeah. Now that she knows what he tastes like (heaven), what he sounds like when he’s groaning in her ear (sin), what he smells like (pine and all man), she can’t think of him as anything other than the physical embodiment of sex.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Oliver continues, unaware of the way he’s affecting her, probably still riding the adrenaline high from whatever he did tonight out on the streets. He pulls back his hood and wipes off the grease around his eyes. “You should be at home. Recovering.”

“Don’t patronise me, Oliver,” Felicity bristles, annoyed, but not annoyed enough to stop herself from raking her eyes down his body, appreciating the way his tight green pants really hug his figure.

“Also,” she clears her throat. Diverts her gaze back to his face. “We talked about this. You don’t get to decide what I do or don’t do.”

Oliver blinks at her, pausing in the middle of putting away his bow and quiver. Something in her tone must have caught his attention because when she turns to him, he looks decently apologetic and maybe even a little relieved.

“Okay, yeah,” he mumbles. “I’m still... adjusting to all of this. I’m sorry. Let me try again.”

He discards his weapon, pulls up another chair and sinks into it as he rolls towards her. Felicity lifts an eyebrow, watching his hands as they stretch out to hold on to the arms of her chair and drags her closer to him.

Face to face now, she can’t help but marvel (again) at how beautiful he is. His bright blue eyes, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the neatly trimmed scruff along his jaw... _Delicious_. She licks her lips, heart rate spiking at the memory of how much she had enjoyed the feeling of his scruff brushing against her skin when he -

“Felicity?”

“Huh?” Her eyes fly up to his, blushing when she sees the knowing smirk on his face. Like he knows exactly where her mind’s been.

In the gutter.

“I said I’m sorry. I was just surprised to see you down here, that’s all. You’re clearly feeling a lot better, and I definitely should not have questioned your decision to be here tonight.”

“You’re learning,” Felicity says, a teasing lilt in her voice. “Good job, Oliver.”

Oliver rises from his seat, inching closer so he looms over her, his hands still gripping the sides of her chair. “Now who’s the one being patronising?”

She can’t concentrate on anything else but how close his face is to hers, how she can smell the leather and the remnant of whatever cologne he’d put on for the day. She zeroes in on his lips, slightly parted, so, _s_ o kissable and so near and well.

Whatever.

She can do this now.

_They_ do this now.

Her hands reach up to pull his face down to hers and she kisses him. Slants her lips against his, suckling on his top lip the way she’s been dying to since he entered the lair.

The surprised groan that leaves him sends a bolt of electricity straight through her and she can't contain the smile that blooms on her lips.

She cradles his face between her hands, enjoying the way his stubble scrapes against the smooth skin of her palm. Her tongue slicks into his mouth and she hums when it makes contact with his. She savours his taste, sliding over and under, bringing her teeth into play as she changes angles so she taste more of his heady flavour.

Amazing.

Her hands leave his face, trips down his body, landing on the waistband of his pants. Because yeah, he’s standing and she’s sitting and she’s in the perfect position to -

“ _Felicity, wait_.”

She laughs against his lips, mainly because she still can’t wrap her heard around the fact that she’s capable of making Oliver Queen sound the way he does when he says her name.

Tangled up in unbridled emotion, syllables strangled in his throat.

“Are you sur -”

She waves him off. “Doctors gave me the all clear this morning. Pulled my stitches out and everything. See?”

She lifts her shirt up proudly, and she doesn’t miss the way Oliver stiffens at the sight of her bare skin. His nostrils flare, eyes fixated on her stomach, and then he holds out his hands to her to help her stand up.

“C’mon,” he growls, his voice deep and entirely too distracting.

“Where we goin’?” she asks breathlessly, taking his hand. Her fingers look so small laced between his but somehow they fit perfectly together. She squeezes once and manages to make him smile, a tender thing, soft around the edges as he looks down at her.

“Somewhere comfortable.”

He says nothing else but pulls her with him, away from her workstation, past the salmon ladder and into the back corner of his exercise area where he keeps his gear and the dummies he uses as target practice whenever he’s training.

Oh. And the couch.

His intentions click into place and she shoots him a sly grin. She can get behind that.

“We’re gonna make out next to your workout dummies and let them watch us?” She teases as she loops her arms around his neck, pressing up against him. Her fingers play with the hair on the nape of his neck.

“Didn’t think you were that kinda guy, Oliver. Kinda kinky, which I’m totally not judging you for, of course. Everyone has their kinks. Whatever floats your boat. Totally down for the making out part though.”

He leans into her embrace, hands on her waist, and brushes a kiss over her lips before pulling back and nuzzling her cheek as he whispers into her ear. “We are _so_ going to revisit this kink thing, just so you know.”

He doesn’t give her a chance to respond, because his lips are back on hers, and things gets heated quickly, continuing from where they left off before. He sucks her bottom lip into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth, pulling a gasp of pleasure from her as he takes from her as much as she’s giving him.

His hands slide up from her waist, sneaking under her shirt, one splaying over her back, the other moving up so it curves around her ribcage, just under her breast. His thumb grazes the bottom edge of her bra rubbing back and forth lazily.

Warmth radiates from him, his fingers, his body - he’s like a walking furnace and she loves it. She moans into him again, opening her mouth a little wider to give him more access.

She’s pressed up against him fully, chest to chest, and she can feel his hardness pulsing against her stomach, a delicious, solid presence that’s sending her spiralling into a chasm of desire and want and she pushes her hips into him, rubs herself against him unabashedly because she needs to feel more of him.

More of everything.

“Jesus, Felicity,” Oliver mumbles over a sigh. He rips his lips from hers and starts downwards, suckling on a spot just under her jaw. They’ve done this enough in the last couple of days that he knows it’s an erogenous zone for her and he makes full use of this knowledge.

He bites, sucks and licks his way along her neck and she melts into him. Turns her head to give him a better angle as she slides her own hands down the front of his jacket, fumbling for the zipper.

She’s surprised she’s capable of actually unzipping it, but she gets there eventually and he shrugs it off his shoulders the moment it’s completely undone.

The second it falls to the ground her fingers dive under his thin black shirt and scratches her nails down the hard, oh _so hard_ , ridges of his abs.

“Yesssss.”

She feels him shiver under her touch she’ll never get tired knowing that she can do this to him, that she can draw these kinds of involuntary reactions from the man who can take down dangerous criminals with his eyes closed. It makes her feel powerful.

Like an overlord. Hood Overlord. Hah.

Oliver pulls away, laughter shining in his eyes. “Did you just call yourself an overlord?”

She doesn’t even bother denying it. “My brain is short-circuiting, I am not responsible for anything I say or do for as long as you keep kissing me.”

Oliver grins, shaking his head good-naturedly. He leans in again, this time his hands pulling at the hem of her shirt. He tilts his head at her in question. “Can I?”

The fact that he’s asking for her permission is really doing it for her - good things, good, sinfully pleasurable things, and she can’t even be bothered to feel ashamed by how eager she is for him.

“Yeah, yeah, take it off,” she demands as she holds her hands up to make things easier for him.

He pulls it off her obediently, and she expects him to come back to her the moment she’s bare to him in nothing but her bra, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stands back and stares at her.

“You’re gorgeous,” he whispers, dragging his eyes down her body, taking his sweet time with it. He sucks in a deep breath, almost like he needs the time to find some collect himself, and then his hands bracket her sides and he leans down to place a kiss along the top of her left shoulder.

“You’re smart, and gorgeous, and not just ‘ _some nerd’_ and I’m so sorry that I made you think you were anything less. And I’m going to make it up to you.”

Okay, alright, yeah, the sexy, growly thing he’s doing with his voice makes her feel like flames are licking up her body, from her toes all the way up to her chest. Anticipation thunders in her heart, every inch of skin that he touches amplifying her already heightened state of arousal.

He kisses her again, long and hard, and his hands cup her breasts, making her moan at the heat radiating from his fingers. She’s sure he can feel her nipples pebbling under his touch, and just as she’s about to beg him to remove her bra, he surprises her by kneeling down, bypassing her breasts entirely - wow, that stings a little - only to rest his forehead against her stomach.

Against the scar that’s stretched across her midsection. He doesn’t say anything, but brushes the tip of his forefinger and middle fingers over the length of it. His touch is featherlight, eyes focused on it with laser-like precision.

She bites her bottom lip, watching him in silence, giving him the time he needs to -

What exactly _is_ he doing?”

“It looks a lot better. You sure it doesn’t hurt?” he asks gruffly, tilting his head up so he can look at her.

Oh. Right, he’s examining her. Making sure she’s okay, even though she’s already told him she is. Because he’s an overprotective vigilante - but he’s doing it in the sexiest way humanly possible so she gives him a free pass. This time.

She sinks her fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp. “It doesn’t hurt, but if I say it does, will you kiss it better?”

“I think I’m going to kiss it whatever you say,” he responds, and bless him, he makes good on his word.

The soft press of his lips reignites the fire in her veins and she squirms under his careful exploration. Her nerves must be extra sensitive around her scar because despite being so gentle, the contact still threatens to send her to her knees. He moves along the length of it, peppering little kisses here and there, his fingers gliding over her skin.

Damn.

He has absolutely no business being so good at this.

“Well, that’s nice to know,” Oliver chuckles, which makes her groan because of course she’s said that out loud again.

“Shut up and get back up here,” she grouses, tugging on his hair. But all he does is laugh again and the gentle rumble only serves to make her feel even more out of control.

This is completely unchartered territory for both of them but here he is playing her like an expert, drawing involuntary gasps and moans from her lips. He swirls his tongue into her belly button, nips the skin above it playfully and she slams her eyes shut as stars burst behind her eyelids.

“God, _Oliver_.”

She digs her fingers into his shoulder, urging him to stand again and this time he listens. He rises slowly, dragging his tongue over her, kissing his way up, up and further up.

She keeps her eyes closed, savouring the sensation of him moving up her body, leading with his tongue, punctuating with the hard press of his bulging erection against her skin. He takes a painstakingly long time, his movement slow and languid until he’s at his full height again.

Her hands leave his shoulders in favour of slipping under his shirt again, moving up his back, resting on his shoulder blades and holding him close. His teeth bite down on the tip of her ear and she shudders, desire spiking, making her feel like she’s about to melt into a puddle at his feet.

“Do you know, Felicity, that I can _smell_ you, from all the way up here?”

She whimpers. Just whimpers helplessly at how downright dirty he sounds because yeah, she knows she’s soaking right through her underwear, arousal slick between her legs but she can’t find it in herself to be even a little embarrassed.

Not when the evidence of how affected he is, is very prominently pressing into her belly. She takes his hand from her waist and without breaking eye contact with him, guides his fingers down towards the the button of her jeans.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Oliver’s breathing is ragged as he speaks again, gently nudging her until she’s falling backwards onto the couch. His smile is downright predatory. “Gonna taste you. Now.”

* * *

 

He’s losing his mind. Nerve endings on the fritz at the prospect of finally being able to touch her the way he wants to after so long denying himself. 

Kneeling at the edge of the couch, hands on either side of her thighs, he pulls down her jeans, needing to feel the smooth expanse of her skin against his own. So desperate for it. The scent of her desire is thick in the air and it’s driving him crazy to be so close, yet so god damned far from where he really wants to be.

“These are the _worst_ ,” he grumbles, not at all bothered by how impatient he sounds. She knows - surely she knows how much he wants this. Felicity shifts on the couch, then she’s kicking off her heels to help him along.

She eyes him pointedly. Get a move on, is what she means. Yeah, yeah, he gets it. Teamwork makes the dream work.

He tugs on the material again, and this time he manages to get it all the way down to her ankles. “Not that I don’t love these, but I really, really wish you wore one of your dresses today.”

He feels her laughter vibrating through her body, a deep chuckle tumbling from her lips. “The big bad Hood, nearly defeated by a pair of skinny jeans? _Oh_ , here we go, Oliver Queen, you have not failed this - ”

His head snaps up as he finally yanks the offending garment off her feet. “Don’t say it,” he growls. Don’t you dare.”

He slides his hands up her calves then, grazing hs lips up along the inside of her thighs slowly, never once breaking eye contact with her. She shudders and squirms under him and he takes pleasure in the variety of reactions he’s coaxing from her, making a promise to himself that by the end of the night, he’s going to burn each and every one of them into his brain forever.

His fingers curl under her knees and lifts them, folds them over his shoulders as he inches closer still. Her bare heels drag over the muscles of his back, urging him forward, digging into him almost painfully.

With a final glance up at the landscape of her body, he gives into her and leans in, palms slipping under her ass to drag her forward and yeah.

_Yeah._

His nose presses along the lacy edge where her bright pink (of course it’s pink) underwear meets the crease of her thighs, inhaling the sweet, sweet smell of her arousal. His cock twitches in his pants, pressing uncomfortably against the seam of his pants but he doesn’t care.

How can he, with her spread open for him, soaking wet, moaning eratically with every pass of his nose over the material of her underwear. And then using his fingers, he pulls it aside and she’s finally, finally completely bare to him.

Wasting no time, he dives into her and Felicity lets out the dirtiest noise he’s ever heard from her. It’s a mix of both a gasp and a moan and her hips buck up from under him, which only allows him to sink his tongue even deeper.

The burst of flavor on his tongue is intoxicating, sweet and salty and he groans, lapping up the juices dripping obscenely from her.

“ _Oliver_ ,” Felicity hisses as he feels her hands slide into his hair like she needs something to hold onto as he has his way with her.

“Yeah, hold on tight, baby.”

She’s absolutely wild under him and he has to move an arm to hold down her hips, keep her still so he can have more.

_So much_ more.

He moves up a little higher, dragging the flat of his tongue out and over, then closes his lips over her clit. Sucks on it, hard, which makes Felicity buck off the couch and dig her nails into his scalp, a litany of curses falling from her lips.

Smiling, he dips a finger into her sex, teasing her, swirling it through the silky, molten liquid.

“Oliver, _pleasepleaseplease_.”

He doesn’t know if she’s even aware of her own begging, but its speaks to him on a baser level and a surge of animalistic pride shoots through him. He’s doing this to her. Oliver Queen, serial college dropout, one time notorious bad boy of Starling city has managed to turn certified genius, hacker extraordinaire Felicity Smoak into an incoherent, babbling mess with his tongue.

God, it feels good.

Tastes good.

So good.

He thrusts a finger into her and lifts his head just enough to watch her arch her back off the couch on a sigh, and it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, his voice hoarse, heavy with emotion. “So fucking beautiful, Felicity.”

Her hands leave his head, flying out to either side of her body, pressing hard down into the couch to keep herself centred. She’s chanting his name over and over again, eyes screwed shut, hips undulating against his arm still curved around her waist, trying to keep her still.

Slipping another finger into her, he increases his pace, taking his cue from Felicity’s rhythmic gasping. She’s squeezing his fingers in time with his thrusts, and oh god, all he can think about is his cock in her, and her squeezing him the same way, warm and wet and dripping and suddenly he can’t bear it anymore.

He needs to see her come for him.

And soon.

He brings his thumb into play, pressing against her clit as his fingers dive deeper, faster. He leans in, to kiss swollen nub with fervour, inhaling, licking, swallowing every drop of her essence that spills out each time his fingers slide out from her.

“Yesyesyesyesyes,” Felicity gasps. “Oliver, I’m so close. So, so close.”

He increases his speed, sucks and rubs her clit even harder, a man on a mission. He can feel her all over him, slippery around his mouth and down his chin and wants to taste her like this for all eternity.

He growls into her at the thought, blows a puff of air where he’s working her over and then like a goddess rising from the earth, her back arches so far off the couch she dislodges his arm from her hips. She finally lets out a wild, very loud, strangled moan that echoes around the Foundry, like music to his ears.

He stills his fingers in her, resting his forehead against her hip as she rides her orgasm out. She flutters around his fingers, pulsing in the aftershocks and he grins into her skin.

“Yeah, just like that, babe.”

Sliding his fingers out of her, he makes a point to drag it up the apex of her thighs, drawing her attention to him. Their eyes meet and he makes her watch as he slips his drenched fingers into his mouth and licks her slickness off him.

“You taste like my wildest dreams,” he tells her. She blushes, her skin tinged pink from her belly all the way up to her neck and she’s so adorable it makes his heart hurt.

He gently moves her legs off his shoulder, but not before placing one last lingering kiss against her clit. Felicity whines at the contact and he chuckles, climbing up the couch so he hovers over her.

“You good?” he asks, brushing a strand of her hair off her forehead as he rests his forehead against hers, his hands landing on the wall behind them, on either side of her head to steady himself. “Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She grins at him, slow and easy, then bites down on her bottom lip as if she’s deciding how to answer him.

Her hands slide up his back and he lets her pull him to her. He’s not sure if she wants to kiss him, but she doesn’t seem to mind the fact that she can probably taste herself on his lips. She kisses him sloppily, still riding the blissful high of her orgasm, and he goes with it, allowing her to take the lead.

Eventually, she pulls away, shrugs and and brushes her nose against his. “Yeah, I’m so, so good. You’re really good at that.”

He’s about to say something smug but she catches him off guard when her fingers tug on the waistband of his pants and he’s suddenly made very, very aware of how hard he is. How painfully hard and uncomfortable he is trapped in his very tight leather pants.

“Ah, Felicity,” he gasps, tensing the muscles in his arms so he doesn’t just fall onto her. She doesn’t pay him any mind, instead sliding the zipper of his pants down, further down and he lets out a breath when his cock springs free.

“Felicity, I don’t think -”

“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t think, Oliver.”

The next thing he knows, she’s sliding out from under him, has a hand on on his shoulder, manhandling him so now he’s the one with slumped on the couch, mouth agape.

“Don’t. Even. Think.”

It’s her turn to drag his pants off, making quicker work of it than he had with hers. She drops it off the edge of the couch and comes back up to straddle him, knees bent by his thighs, hands sliding under his shirt.

“I don’t know how you’re still dressed, honestly,” she mumbles, as she twists the material in her hands. “Off. Now. I wanna see your abs.”

Oliver laughs, but he acquiesces, pulling his shirt off for her. A contented sigh falls from her lips as her hands move across the expanse of his chest. She pays close attention to his scars, tracing over them, gentle but sure.

“We kinda match,” she mumbles as she lingers over the jagged line low on his abdomen. “Cool, right? I’ve never really had a scar until now, and we have matching ones.”

Her eyes are shining blue, bright and so open. Never in his entire lifetime could he have predicted this. That this amazing woman would stumble into his life and completely turn it upside down, that she’d end up be straddling him, looking so pleased that they have matching scars instead of hating him for being the cause of it.

“I’d prefer if we didn’t have anymore matching ones though,” he says, quirking an eyebrow at her. His fingers travel up her smooth skin of her shoulder and then to her back where he flicks the band of her bra expertly, undoing it with ease.

Felicity catches on quick and she shrugs the bra straps off her shoulders and then her gorgeous breasts are in full view in front of him.

God.

He leans in an captures her right nipple in his mouth, nibbling, sucking, biting down gently as he feels it pebble on his tongue. His hand comes around to cup her other breast, his thumb swiping back and forth, paying it just as much attention as the other.

He’s never going to stop enjoying the way she’s panting in his ear, listening to her breathless mewling as he plays with her.

He didn’t think it was possible but he’s sure he’s getting even harder and he has to shift his hips under her to get comfortable. He doesn’t expect Felicity to move with him though, so when she widens her legs to give him space and the tip of his cock brushes over her very damp panties, they both freeze in place.

And then he jerks his hips up again, rubbing against her even harder and they both groan simultaneously and fuck, that’s a complete turn on for him.

His heart pounds under his chest as her hands fumble with his boxers, finally dipping inside and - damn.

“Felicity, _fuck!_ ”

Her hand closes around him, warm and tight and his eyes slam shut, neck straining to maintain his composure.

“You okay there, big guy?” Felicity teases, pumping him twice, and good lord, he swears he’s seeing stars. Stars and the sun and the moon, every time her lithe fingers run over the tip of his cock, squeezing hard as she travels down his shaft.

“Stop, stop.” He’s breathing heavily, ragged and barely holding on. “I gotta - _Felicity_ , I need -”

“Tell me what you want, Oliver,” she says as she releases his dick and her hands travel back up to his pecs. She leans in and plants an open-mouthed kiss on his lips, tangling her tongue with his, moaning into him.

Her hips rolls against his dirtily, trapping his cock between both their lower bodies and Oliver thinks he might cry from the stimulation.

He rips his lips from hers and when he looks back at her, there’s fire in her eyes, unbridled desire reflected in them. He tilts his head at her, hoping to God she understands what he’s asking her. She stares at him for a full second, and then she nods eagerly.

Yeah, okay, they’re doing this.

She rises up as he lifts his hips so he can pull his boxers off. He groans with pleasure The mix of the cool air in the Foundry hitting him, along with the warmth of being around Felicity threatens to fry his brain and if he’s not inside her in the next ten minutes, things are going to get real embarrassing for him.

He doesn’t even notice when Felicity takes off her own underwear, but suddenly they’re both completely naked, grinding against each other, sweating, panting, on the verge of falling off the cliff they’ve been so careful to avoid for so long.

He bands an arm around her and they’re chest to chest, barely inches apart. “Felicity, if you need to stop, this is the -”

“Don’t you dare,” she hisses, kissing him fiercely. She leans back, hands reaching for her jeans discarded on the floor. He can’t see what she’s doing, but he’s afforded with an amazing view of her breasts and he takes her nipple in his mouth again.

For posterity.

He sucks hard, needing to do something to alleviate the tension coiling low in his gut, and it draws a long, sinful moan from Felicity.

There’s a rustling in the air and it makes him look up from her breasts, finding Felicity holding up a condom packet, a triumphant smile on her face.

“Did you...” He clears his throat. “Did you just have that in your pants?”

She grins at him wickedly, nodding as she tears the packet with her teeth.

“Was kinda hoping. This was bound to happen anyway,” she states matter-of-factly, pursing her lips daring him to say anything otherwise.

And then she’s rolling the condom onto him and rising up, a hand curling around his member. His heart is racing, anticipating, craving for her.

Then she sinks down onto him.

“ _Felicity_!”

He can’t - he can’t stand it. She’s tight around him, warm, slick and wet, her inner walls throbbing around him. He trembles under her, his hands digging into her waist, needing her to steady him.

He’s going to combust. The flames of want and need and desire licks at him, threatening to burn him into ash, and he’s so willing, so, so willing to go out like that if it means his last memory is of Felicity straddling him, her back arched in a beautiful curve, their hands laced together at their sides.

He raises their hands so she can loop it around his neck, and he bands both of his around her body, holding her against him, chest to chest, not an inch of space between them.

“Oh, God, Oliver,” she whimpers into his ear as he thrusts into her, long and slow, before pulling back and slamming back into her. “Oh, God, oh God, oh God.”

She moves with confidence and she falls into an easy rhythm, rising up until he’s almost all the way out of her and then back down, riding him like an expert. She twists and rolls her hips wantonly, unashamed, knowing exactly what she wants from him.

And he’s all too happy to give it to her.

He drives up into her time with her movements, doubling the sensations coursing through him, every inch of him slick with sweat as he basks in the pleasure and bliss of being inside her. Around her.

“I’m not gonna last,” he mumbles in between heavy breaths. He buries his head in the crook of her shoulder, sucking on the skin there. “Not gonna last long, Felicity.”

“Good, I’m not either. We can go slow next time,” is her response, and with that she ramps up her movements tenfold.

Her words take a moment to sink but when it does, it sends a thrill of heat through him. Next time. There’s going to be a next time. Thank God.

He tightens his hold on her, sucking ardently on her neck and he’s sure it’s going leave a very telling mark on her but he doesn’t care. _Can’t_ care, not when Felicity’s moving against him the way she is without abandon, grinding against hips in punishing speed.

He slips on arm down to her ass and palms her cheek, holding her steady as he pistons into her, matching her pace. Moments later, with a sly twist of her hips, he feels the telltale tightening in his balls and his vision starts blurring.

“Felicity.” His voice is so foreign to him, deep and guttural, hoarse from all the panting. “Felicity, I’m gonna come.”

She doesn’t answer, but he feels her squeezing her inner muscles around him as her movements start becoming more erratic. She slams onto him faster and faster and he’s now completely at her mercy and God, oh God -

She digs her hands into his hair and yanks his head back so that they’re staring at each other, eye to eye. She kisses him, and then leans in to whisper into his ear.

“Oliver, come for me.”

_Yes._

He comes hard, her name on the tip of his tongue, vision turning white as he jerks wildly under her.

And almost like his orgasm sets off her own, she follows him soon after, squeezing him almost painfully as her mouth falls open in a silent scream, eyes clenched shut, her hands carding through his hair as she presses his head into her chest.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Felicity whimpers and he almost wants to laugh because the word sounds weird coming from her. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her curse.

He lifts his head from her chest and takes her in. Pupils blown, cheeks tinged red, chest heaving as she tries to regulate her breathing. He’s sure he looks no better, so he just grins at her.

“Yeah, fuck indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Lol. 
> 
> Talk to me @estheryam on Twitter.


	15. Epilogue

A vast majority of John Diggle’s life had been spent in the military, training to expect the unexpected. Add that to the fact that he’s been running around with the Hood over the past year or so, means that there aren’t a lot of things that can surprise him anymore.

But when he makes his way down the steps into the Foundry a few nights after Felicity’s release from the hospital, the sight before him makes him stop in his tracks, all his training be damned.

Because yeah, he’s surprised, all right.

Felicity’s dangling from Oliver’s salmon ladder, holding on with her fingers, arms outstretched, laughing heartily as her legs swing a few feet above the ground. Her shirt rides up over her stomach and the sight of long, jagged scar makes Diggle wince involuntarily.

A wave of frustration rolls through him, because while it’s no secret she enjoys watching Oliver on it, she has absolutely no business hanging from the salmon ladder herself. Especially so soon after her ordeal, and honestly what the hell is Oliver thinking letting her on the ladder?

Instead of stopping her, he’s standing in front of her, shirtless as always, like he’s _encouraging_ her, hands clasped behind him, looking up at her with a big grin on his face.

Diggle didn’t know Oliver was _capable_ of grinning.

What kind of alternate universe has he stumbled into?

“Help me down, you jerk!” Felicity demands over another fit of laughter. She swings her legs out like she’s trying to kick him, but Oliver steps back, easily avoiding her.

“Hey, that’s not very nice, especially since you need me to help you and all,” Oliver teases but he makes no move to help her down. Then, he changes his mind and walks back in, holding both his hands up and making a ‘come here’ motion with his fingers.

“Just drop down, I’ll catch you, I promise.”

“Nooo, it’s too far! I’m afraid of heights and you shouldn’t have lifted me so high up, and now that I know it’s way more fun watching you do this, than actually doing this myself, you can just bring me down - oh, _Diggle_!”

Oliver whips his head around at that, and immediately the grin disappears from his face. But then Felicity lets out a shriek and he turns back to her just in time, his arms banding around her body, catching her neatly as she falls into his embrace.

“See, told you I’d catch you.”

Felicity scowls at him, flicking on his ear playfully. “You almost didn’t.”

Diggle can’t help but notice how comfortable they are with each other, and alarm bells go off in his head. She’s pressed against Oliver’s naked chest, and instead of being flustered and spiralling into a babbling mess like she usually does, she’s... _not_.

Oliver slides his hands around from her back so they rest on her waist, and yet neither one of them make a move to step away from each other. “The point is that I did catch you, therefore keeping my promise. You can’t be mad at me for that.”

They seem to have forgotten that he’s there, wrapped up in each other, barely a hair’s breadth apart. Felicity’s palms are flat against Oliver’s naked chest and from what he can see, which, to be fair, isn’t much from his vantage point, it looks like she’s scratching him lightly.

And is Oliver... _purring_?

_What?_

Now that’s _interesting._

Unable to stand the weirdness any longer, Diggle clears his throat loudly.

“Should you be messing around with that, Felicity?” Diggle calls out as he resumes his descent down the stairs, smirking as he watches the two of them fly apart at the reminder that they’re not alone.

“Um, yeah, I’m fine. Totally, absolutely, fine,” Felicity tells him as she tugs her shirt down, cheeks tinged pink.

She scurries back to her workstation and Diggle meets her there, leaning his hip against the desk.

It’s only been a few days since her release after all, and experience has taught him that there’s no such thing as being too careful when it comes to injuries like hers. Both physically and emotionally.

A surge of protectiveness rushes through him and he casts a wary eye at Oliver, who’s hanging back from the two of them, busying himself sharpening his arrowheads. He’s not fooling anyone though, Diggle knows he’s listening to every word they’re saying.

When Diggle turns back to Felicity, he sighs and places a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it once for comfort.

“I just think that overexerting yourself so soon after being in the hospital isn’t the best idea, that’s all.”

Felicity shoots him a smile, sweet and genuine, and it settles the worry in his gut. She spins in her chair and gets comfortable, leaning back and stretching her arms behind her head.

“That really didn’t hurt, Dig. And I just wanted to see if I could do it you, know? The ladder? Spoiler alert, I cannot. And Oliver was here the whole time so it was completely, one hundred percent safe. Except you know, when he refused to help me down, but really the point is I wanted to try it, and he caught me when I fell so everything’s good, and besides, I’ve done way more -”

“ _Felicity_.”

Oliver appears beside next to them suddenly, pulling a shirt over his head. He’s fixing Felicity with an amused stare, easy and soft and Diggle really can’t believe he’s seeing so many different smiles from the man today.

Honestly.

What is _happening_?

“Right, of course, you don’t want to know about my boring life outside the lair, because it’s boring and totally doesn’t involve anything strenuous and um, oh, look, something’s happening on my computer!”

She rolls her chair towards her monitors and Diggle purses his lips. Her ears are bright red and she’s very obviously blushing. Oliver, on the other hand, merely stares at the back of her head like a love-sick boy and suddenly everything clicks into place.

Oh.

Looks like Oliver really _did_ get his head out of his ass.

“Hey man, want to go a few rounds on the mat?” he asks Oliver, arching an eyebrow. It’s not really a question and they both know it.

Oliver follows him onto the exercise mats, stretching silently like he knows exactly what’s coming and he’s preparing himself for it.

Diggle glances back at Felicity to make sure she’s occupied with whatever she’s doing on her computers and once he’s satisfied that she’s not eavesdropping on them like she’s sometimes prone to, Diggle cocks his head at Oliver and folds his arms over his chest.

“You want to tell me whats going on here, Oliver?”

He tries to sound as stern as he can, rearranges his features so it betrays none of the amusement he’s actually feeling on the inside. Because watching Oliver squirm is _fun_.

“Nothing, Dig. I told her I’ve been an idiot, she agreed and we’re good now.”

“Uh huh.”

Oliver sighs, turns to glance at Felicity and then pushes Dig further into the corner of the room. He gives Diggle a once over with narrowed eyes, as if he’s having a debate with himself over something. Eventually, he rolls his neck and his shoulders relax. His voice drops into a whisper.

“Okay, fine. We worked things out. I went over to her place and apologised, and we’re... something. I... like her. You know that, Dig. And she’s great, and amazing and I don’t deserve her but I’m going to make sure I - ”

Diggle chokes back a laugh, interrupting him with a slap on the shoulder. Because as much as he’s enjoying a very flustered Oliver Queen, it’s just a little sad.

“Yeah, I’m just messing with you, man,” he says. “Knew something was up the moment I walked in. You know you could have told me. I’ve been rooting for you two since you met.”

“Dig,” Oliver huffs in exasperation, relief rolling off him in waves. “It’s just that we’re still figuring _us_ out and between the mess at work with Mike, my mother badgering me about joining Q.C. full time, and you know, Hood stuff, we thought it’d be best if we kept it under wraps for a while.”

Oliver licks his lips and chances a glance back at Felicity. The expression on his face softens and it dawns upon Diggle that he’s never seen Oliver like this before. Completely enamoured, utterly gone for her.

The man’s in _love_.

Oliver might not know it yet, stubborn as he is, but Diggle’s been in love before, and he sees the same adoration and desperate longing reflected on Oliver’s face.

“You can’t hurt her again,” Diggle warns.

Oliver flicks him a startled look and blinks a few times. “I don’t - I’m not going to.”

“Yeah? Because you hurt her when you refused to visit her at the hospital.”

“I know, I know. I apologised, a lot. I was an idiot, Dig.” A flash of pain, and something like regret flickers in Oliver’s eyes, and it’s all Diggle needs to know that he really is sorry about it. “I’m not going to give her a reason to take back her forgiveness.”

Oliver speaks with so much conviction that he believes him. Diggle smiles and nods, satisfied. Because the three of them are very much a team now, and he’s going to do everything he can to keep it that way.

Then, nudging Oliver gently with his elbow, he pushes them back onto the centre of the exercise mat.

“So, care for a couple of rounds, lover boy?”

Oliver makes an exasperated noise in his throat but he grins, whips off his shirt and nods. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

* * *

 

 

The boys have been at it for hours. Or what feels like hours, at least. Definitely more than one.

She wheels her chair back and watches them trade more blows, eyes glazing over from boredom. Not that she’s not enjoying the extremely delicious display of semi-naked athleticism, of course. But she can’t do anything about said semi-naked athleticism so.

Yeah. Bored.

Her updates are done, she’s cleaned her desk twice, checked in with the S.C.P.D. to make sure the Hood isn’t on their radar (for now), and she literally has nothing else left to do.

Oliver tackles Diggle to the ground, and she whoops on the inside, thinking surely, _surely_ that means they’re done. How many times do they have to send each other sprawling before they call it a night anyway? But much to her disappointment, Diggle just leaps up and circles Oliver again.

Rolling her eyes, she makes her decision and drags her bag out from under the desk. She throws her phone into it and makes sure she has her keys before giving the guys one last glance.

“Hey, I’m going home, I’ll see you guys tomorrow?”

Oliver immediately whirls around at the sound of her voice, which only allows Diggle to land a hard punch into his side. Felicity grimaces, but Oliver merely shrugs it off and jogs up to her, wide-eyed and panting, leaving Diggle on the mat..

“Wait, where are you going?”

She spies Diggle rolling his eyes behind him, then hears him mutter, “She just said she’s going home, man.”

“Yeah, just home. It’s late and I’m kinda hungry,” she answers. “You keep training though, if you want.”

“No, no, give me five minutes and I’ll come with you,” he responds breathlessly, and before she can react to it, he takes her face in his hands and plants a smacking kiss on her lips.

And then he’s running off to the back of the lair, leaving her to deal with a very bemused John Diggle.

“Um,” she starts, touching her lips with her fingers, still a little dazed. Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she smiles shyly at Diggle. “So... I guess you know that’s happening.”

“Ah, yeah. Oliver told me.” Diggle shrugs. “Kinda figured it out when you two were making eyes at each other at the salmon ladder, though.”

She feels herself blushing, having conveniently forgotten about their little moment before Diggle arrived. She wasn’t sure exactly how she ended up on the ladder, but it had involved a rather heated make out session, a bet, and then he’s lifting her up, his hands all over her waist and her ass and then...

Then she was dangling from the damn thing, way too high off the ground, regretting her life choices and demanding him to help her down.

“It’s not going to be weird, is it?” she asks Diggle with a touch of caution because of course she doesn’t want it to be weird, but she has to ask nonetheless. Because Diggle’s her friend and she really doesn’t want to lose the good thing they’ve got going here if he has a problem with it, but she also lo- likes - what she has with Oliver and what if -

“Hey, hey, don’t think so hard, Felicity,” Diggle interrupts her, pulling her into a tight hug.

“Oh,” she sighs into him. “Out loud again?”

“Yeah, but hey, it’s not going to be weird, okay? Might actually be good, actually. Haven’t seen Oliver smile so much since the day I met him. Maybe you’ll get him to relax a little.”

The reassurance makes her feel warm and tingly on the inside, because despite not needing Diggle’s permission, it’s nice to know that he approves. Solidarity within Team Hood, and all that.

Hah, Team Hood. Oliver is not going to like that. _Perfect._

“Who would have guessed picking up that file at QC would have led me to all of this, huh?” Felicity muses out loud, waving her hands around the lair. “I mean, sure, you two lied to me for like a whole week about who the Hood was, and that wasn’t cool, but really, who would have thought?”

Diggle chuckles. “You definitely threw us in for a spin. Not complaining about the outcome though, are you?”

“I could have done without the kidnapping and the,” she makes a slicing motion with he forefinger across her stomach, rolling her eyes when Diggle flinches. Obviously still too soon for him, bless his soul. “But yeah, otherwise, zero complaints.”

“None from me too,” Oliver chimes in, reappearing at her workstation, fresh from a shower, drops of water still clinging onto his hair. He smudges a kiss over her forehead and smiles at her, tangles his fingers with hers.

“You ready to go?”

She rakes her eyes down his body, takes in the tight shirt he’s put on and the equally flattering jeans and hops off the desk eagerly.

“Oh, so ready,” she murmurs as she licks her lips, unable to take her eyes off him. She tightens her hold on him, squeezing his fingers in anticipation.

“Yeah, okay, we’re so going to need rules about this,” Diggle groans, shaking his head and waving his hands between them. “Like none of this - _that_ \- in the Foundry, okay? You are not having sex in here. There’s gotta be a line.”

Her breath catches in her throat, eyes dart up to Oliver’s guiltily, the memory of what they did - their _first time_ \- on the couch in the dark corner of the lair flashing in her mind’s eye. But she doesn’t see a shred of remorse in _him_. In fact, there’s a glint of mischief in the way he’s looking at her and

Oh no.

Oliver pulls her from the desk, an arm draped around her shoulders, walking them backwards towards the stairs. She just follows his lead, shrugging apologetically at Diggle, knowing what’s surely coming next.

“Yeah, about that, Dig. Too late.”

* * *

 

The End. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, the end of the 15 week long journey and I'd like give a big, massive thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has read this and left comments/kudos/tweeted me etc. Even if you haven't, I still love you, don't worry, it's all good!!
> 
> It's been a pleasure entertaining you! 
> 
> Twitter: @estheryam


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